Hunger Games: Sirens of the Wood
by DarowdrynofArcadia
Summary: She never could invest herself in the fiction of the star-crossed lovers from District Twelve, and now she's learning the truth of why. When Johanna Mason enters her life, Katniss' world is turned on its head. Joniss ship, all aboard! Rated M for profanity later on and some interesting encounters.
1. Beginnings

**A/N: **And here we have one of my favorite BOOK stories: The Hunger Games. This is actually going to be my first fanfiction of a story with a set course, so since we all know what I like to write we should all know where this is going: SCREW PEETA. Muffin Man(hehehe found that in a few different good fics) is no longer important. At least not as a romance interest.

Based on the title, can you guess what's happening here? For those of you who can't, or who got here by accident, this is a Joniss ship, board now or run along. To that end! I'm making a habit of letting people into the minds of the characters as I see them, so this is how I see Johanna, not necessarily how Suzanne Collins wrote her, and the same goes for Katniss. They will be sweet at times, they will be vulnerable at times, and since they are both hard-headed and stubborn, they will most certainly be a little fiery at times. How they interact however is all part of my own little world, and how I dream things happened instead of how they really did.

I think this is customarily where I'm supposed to say "The Hunger Games franchise and all characters associated with it are copyrighted property belonging to Suzanne Collins." So I just did.

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**First Meetings**

_In the years after the war, we often forgot how certain things came to be. We forgot who pulled the country together after the fall of the Capitol and the death of both President Coin and President Snow. We forgot how families moved on from the deaths that they endured. We even forgot how much we hated each other._

_But there were other things we never forgot. Some we couldn't, and some we just refused to. We never forgot the Games, the hell that we were put through for seventy-five years. We never forgot the faces of those we killed. We never forgot those who died for us. We never forgot the challenges we had to face. And we never... forgot how we found peace at last. Peace in each other, and peace for each other._

_My name is Katniss Everdeen-Mason. I was the Girl Who Was on Fire, I was a star-crossed lover from District 12, I was the Mockingjay. But there is only one title that means anything to me now. I am the girl who tamed, was tamed by, and married Johanna Mason, a tribute from District 7. She was the real woman who carried the revolution, because she saved and carried me. This is our story._

* * *

It began with the Quell, the third in history. Laws state that every twenty-five years, there is a special games with an extra twist. My mentor(really the mentor for both Peeta and I, but who cares about a baker's son?) was in the last Quell. That was the year that they doubled the tributes. That was also the year where they first got a taste of someone using their arena to make fools of them.

This year? This year, I'm betting that the new twist wass because of me, because of how I won and managed to get my fellow District Twelve tribute out with me. For this Quell, the twist was some drivel about how even the strongest of us cannot stand before the power and might of the Capitol. Translated, that meant that I was going back into the games, since I was the only female victor for my district. I wasn't the only woman that happened to though. There was a single other occurrence, notable because she was the only _surviving_ female victor for her district. Johanna Mason, District Seven.

I suppose I should do this all in order. When we heard the announcement on the television live, I... ran. I tried to run away from the truth, but I couldn't. The fence, which had never been electrified consistently before, was live. I couldn't escape into the woods. I couldn't flee my nightmares, and I couldn't flee my future.

I ran and hid the only place I could: an abandoned house in the Victor's Village. I don't know how long I was there, and in the end it doesn't really matter. Eventually, want Snow said finally made it into my head. I was wallowing in my fear and agony when I realized that it meant either Haymitch, my surly and always drunk mentor, or Peeta the baker's son whom I was supposedly madly in love with, was going in with me. Once that stuck I bolted again, this time straight to Haymitch to call a debt I'm still not even sure I was owed.

I walked into that man's house and I sat down to share a drink with him. I used that drink and the chat that followed to give myself time to ask the impossible. I asked him to save Peeta, by any means necessary. If Peeta was named, volunteer. If Peeta volunteered, protect him instead of me. Haymitch swore that he would, swore on his drink. He fucking _promised me_ that he would help Peeta this time, make sure he came home and had the life he deserved.

The Reaping came, and Peeta took Haymitch's place just like we knew he would. We weren't even given time to say goodbye to our friends and family before we were hustled onto the train, and I think that the Peacekeeper Commander actually enjoyed getting to tell me that it was a "new procedure." On the train, the atmosphere was that of the condemned, and honestly that's exactly what we were. Peeta and I watched the recap of the Reapings, and that's when I saw her. I should say, that was the first time that I truly saw Johanna Mason, not just the girl that everyone else saw. I'd watched her games six years ago of course just like everyone else, but the impact of seeing her again now was completely different.

Back then, she was just fifteen and I was eleven. I still had a father, and I was too young to have begun to notice people in that way. Yet even then, she caught my eye. I admired her for her ploy of appearing weak and vulnerable at the beginning, and then once she had a weapon in her hand she became a Fury screaming for the blood of her enemies. Then my father died, and I suddenly had to provide everything for my family. I didn't have time to notice people, even if I had wanted to, because my mother fell into a waking coma and couldn't take care of my sister and I. I hated how weak my mother had become, so I made myself be strong. Thinking back on it now, I think that I was trying to be Johanna, to be the girl I'd seen in the arena. She didn't need anyone else, and I wanted to have that kind of strength and independence.

Now though, with me being a victor myself and a little older, things were different. I saw things about her that I'd failed to notice before. The shape of her face, the way her sharp chin actually defined her and kept her from being a complete baby-face. The arch of her eyebrows, making her look fierce and coy all at once. The balance of her body, strong and muscular yet somehow delicate. In a close-up of her face, I even got a good look at her eyes. A hazel so light and so beautiful it looked like amber shining in the summer sun.

I'm fairly certain that at that point I had never actually noticed just how... stunning someone could be. I mean, objectively I could see why Gale always had so many admirers, and Peeta isn't hard on the eyes either, but Johanna at the Reaping... she absolutely floored me. Even after that though, I still didn't understand what it meant.

Our own Reaping played, and the announcers teared up about how the odds would never be in our favor, blah blah blah. It just made me sick to hear, and I ran away again to my cabin so I didn't have to listen to them gush about how this would be the best games ever. I was tired of the tapes, I was tired of the cheer, and honestly I was tired of the "romance" with the baker's son. After we had returned home the first time, he learned the depth of my indifference and things cooled off rather quickly between him and I. Even on the Victory Tour, where we were supposed to be making everyone believe the lie, we had too many issues out of the public eye to really be convincing when there were cameras to catch it. That night, every tree in my dreams had Johanna's vibrant eyes. I woke up several times sweaty and out of breath without knowing why. All I knew was that I felt like they could see right through me and into my heart. The last dream I had that night woke me up with the feeling of lips on my own, though I was alone. I had this... tightness in my chest that I couldn't explain.

At breakfast, I didn't speak. Actually, I didn't say a word until I was in the Capitol and alone with my stylist. Blessed Cinna, how I adored that man. He always made me feel safe, and I could trust him with anything. Just he and I, I could pour my heart out and he would never judge. He even know, right from the beginning, that I didn't love Peeta, not the way everyone believed, and he still helped me play the fiction so I could survive. I didn't name a soul, but I told him about my dream and very cautiously mentioned that the eyes belonged to a woman. He understood. He knew I was confused, and just like always he made me feel calm. He told me, "In the forest, a tree is a tree, so no one will judge you by the one you choose to climb." I didn't quite understand, but I got enough through my head to know that he meant he was there for me still, no matter what or who I wanted.

Even then, Peeta and I matched. We were beings of fire, unforgiving of the travesty that had us returning one year after we first entered the arena. We held hands, but even he knew after that. He knew I wasn't with him, I wasn't invested in the story of the lovers anymore. He didn't know where I was anymore, but I wasn't with him.

And then... the bomb dropped on us all. She snuck up on us, ducking into the elevator at the last second.

* * *

Johanna Mason from District Seven is less that a foot away from me. She stares at me, looking through me with those impossible eyes as she says, "Isn't my costume awful? My stylist's the biggest idiot in the Capitol. Our tributes have been trees for forty years under her." Her headpiece hits the ground, and she looks like she's trying to strip me with her eyes. "Wish I had Cinna, you look... fantastic."

My mind runs blank with her eyes filling me up. I say the first think I can think of, needing to say something to her. "Yeah, he's been helping me design my own clothing line. You should see what he can do with velvet." She steps right up to me, and I have both succeeded and failed. As she unzips, ensuring that my eyes follow her hands, her husky voice almost moans, "I have. On your tour. That strapless number you wore in District Two? The deep blue one with the diamonds? So gorgeous I wanted to reach through the television and rip it right off your back."

As her costume hits the floor, I don't know whether she means she wanted the dress, or simply wanted my body bare so she could memorize every inch of it like I'm doing with her right now. I can't take my eyes off of her, and the shifting light from my costume playing on her breasts is mesmerizing. I know my mouth is hanging open, but I can't get it to close.

She doesn't look at Peeta, just me, but she still manages to talk to him all the way up to floor seven. The doors open and she steps out, a look of disbelieving triumph on her face as she strokes my cheek. "See you later, Girl on Fire." The doors close behind her, and I'm just mouthing like a fish out of water. Haymitch and Peeta start laughing uproariously until I can speak again. "What?" I demand, glaring daggers at both of them. Haymitch just mutters, "That explains a lot," but Peeta elaborates his own thoughts.

"It's you, Katniss. They're only doing this because you're so... pure." I refuse to acknowledge his words. I won't give him the satisfaction of being right. Again. the doors open on floor twelve and I stomp off to my room, locking the door behind me. I stay there and sulk all evening, but as the night wears on and it gets later, I can't fall asleep. Eventually I become restless, so I slip out of my room and down the hall to roof access. The cool night breeze hits my face and for a moment, I pause and just stand there. I imagine that I'm free, at home in the woods where I belong. Then her eyes flash in my mind and it's over.

With a heavy sigh, I open my eyes and step towards the edge of the building, only to stop and stare. I'm not alone after all. The other rooftop refugee sits gazing over the streets, just like Peeta did last year. Her spiky hair is instantly recognizable to me. Johanna Mason, the woman whose eyes haunt me in quiet moments, is perched on the roof's edge. My breath catches in my throat again, and for a moment I'm torn between running away and running towards her. My choice is taken from me when she turns and sees me standing still.

Johanna grins a wicked grin, and when she moves, she flies through space. Between one heartbeat and the next, her body is pressed into mine. "When I said I'd see you later, I didn't think you'd seek me out so soon." she purrs in my ear. I don't know how to speak, to tell her it was a fluke, but it doesn't matter. This woman who captivates me is wrapped around me, and all I can smell is her. _'Smells like home.'_

I must have a panic attack, because when I can think again she is gone, and I am in my bed. She did leave a note beside me though. "Next time stay conscious, brainless. ~J"


	2. Training Troubles

I didn't get back to sleep again, if you can call fainting "sleeping." I see Johanna everywhere when I close my eyes, and it keeps my heart racing too quickly for me to rest. I can still feel her body wrapped around mine. I can still smell her pine perfume, reminding me of my time hunting in District Twelve. Perhaps most telling of all, I can still see her eyes, feel them looking into my heart. Those eyes, the way they make me feel... my pulse races, my thoughts run nowhere, my skin tingles. It's a current running through me, and I can't stop it. If I'm honest with myself, I'm not even sure I _want_ to stop it, I kinda like it.

I remember all night long just how her low voice made me feel. She filled me with desire, a sensation I've never really felt before. In the games last year, there was a moment where I felt a flicker of something, some warmth that I never caught again with Peeta, but nothing like when Johanna spoke to me last night. I felt that flicker again when Gale kissed me soon after I got home, but nowhere near what Johanna made me feel last night. Just by running up to me and wrapping herself around me, that woman overloaded my body with a pleasant fire that I have never felt burning in me before, and I don't know whether I want it again now or not. It was... so wonderful, but the timing is so wrong, because I intend to die so that Peeta can go home, live the life he was meant to live, and in order for that to happen Johanna herself must die too.

_'Well... if I'm going to be dead soon, should I grab whatever pleasure I can? Shouldn't I be allowed to be happy for the first time ever, for at least a little while? And should I make the first move, because I have no fucking clue how to do that, especially with Johanna...'_ These thoughts torment me, make my mind spin and spiral so that I don't know which way is up even in my own head. I sit in the center of my bed, crippling myself with uncertainty and doubt until the sun rises, the simple and insidious question of what it would feel like to kiss her running through my head again and again.

I hear Haymitch stir next door, but I don't move. I hear Peeta move down the hall, but I stay still. Eventually I even hear Effie call me to breakfast, but I don't answer and I stay right where I am. I'm afraid that if I move, I'll fall apart and scatter, and then I'll never get my answers. I sit there so long that I hear Haymitch again, bellowing for me to get to the dining room. I sigh, and when that doesn't disperse me, I stand and wander out of my room.

The men are sitting there, one amused and the other angry. I don't care. Haymitch gets my attention with his words very quickly though. "Today in training, you've got two jobs. One, stay in love."

"What?!" I cry, shocked at this man who sees me so well and yet seems bent on making me a fool. "I though we agreed that was over after the tour concluded!" I see Peeta turn and give him a look that seems to say, _'I told you so.'_ I continue, "Too many people saw it wasn't true, and you even said last night that the parade proved it!"

He sighs and pours amber liquid from a flask into his coffee before taking a drink and answering me, "Maybe so, but try. And two, make some friends. I'm sure that even you can't screw that one up, sweetheart." The way he looks at me makes me wonder what he's thinking. Is he thinking about Rue last year, or is he thinking about the elevator ride up last night with Johanna holding my attention so completely? Somehow, I think it has everything to do with my reaction to the woman from District Seven. Peeta doesn't say a word, but the look he's giving me with that half smile says everything for him. He's still angry with me for not returning his affection for real, but he's enough of a kind soul that he's genuinely glad that someone has my attention, and he's rooting for me. I tune them both out so I can eat, but it's nagging at me in the back of my mind and I don't manage more than a piece of toast and some bacon. I'm trying to act normal in the hopes that maybe that will mean that I am, but my thoughts are burning at a fever pitch and I have no hope of appearing calm.

All too soon, we're on the elevator going down to the training center and Peeta is holding my hand. I don't force him to let go, thinking that he probably has a good reason, and that it will likely save my life or my dignity or both very soon. It doesn't feel right to touch him and I know it, but I do it anyway. What would I say to stop him, don't touch me? You're not who I want to feel against my skin, you don't have the right eyes, you don't smell right, you don't smell like home? None of it makes sense, but with the doors slide open and he sees that Johanna is standing there with Brutus and Enobaria, he drops my hand like touching me burns him.

I don't know what to do, at least not until he nudges me forward, towards the woman from District Seven who has filled my every waking thought for the last day. There have been a lot of waking thoughts, since I haven't actually managed to sleep at all. I can't deny that I want to smell her again, that I want the electricity that being near her brings. I slowly walk to her side, those bright eyes following me the entire way. She's got that look of surprised satisfaction on her face again, and I have to admit to myself that I like it at least a little. I like that I can get her to look at me like that, I like that I can get anyone to look at me like that. I like the thought that in the middle of this hell, I can be someone who is wanted by a powerful and compelling woman like Johanna Mason. That look is everything I never allowed myself, all the dark promises I never even knew I wanted or cared about. We stay like that, me trying not to look at her while she stares at me hungrily. I can't keep my eyes away from her face though, and every time I look up I can see her breath hitch and her eyes flash just a little. When the instructor starts her spiel right at ten, we both jump, but only half the tributes have bothered to show up, so there are only ten others to see our guilty faces.

When we are allowed to choose our stations, I mindlessly follow her to the knots and snares. With no one else listening anymore, she starts to talk. "Lover Boy sure was quick to drop your hand this morning. I wonder why that was...?"

I try not to smile, and though I know I fail I answer anyway. "I think it was because of you. Specifically, your stripping act in the elevator last night, and..." I blush before I say the next part of my explanation, "how I couldn't keep my eyes from you, how I couldn't stop looking at you." When I glance up to gauge her reaction, her lascivious grin embarrasses me even more, and her reply threatens to steal all my air away.

"I noticed that. Who would have though I had anything to offer the Girl on Fire?" Her hands fly to mimic mine as I twist a knot to cover my ineptitude at dealing with her flirtatious words. It distracts me, and I end up focused on her fingers, how long and slender they are. I wonder what it would feel like to have them combing through my hair, or running along my jaw. I wonder what it would be like for those hands to hold me at night instead of Peeta's. I long to find out, to know if she can make me feel safe and let me sleep at night, to know if she can stop the nightmares and protect me from the horrors of the arena. I also want to know if I can protect her as well, to learn whether I can soothe her when she wakes screaming and grant her enough peace to sleep again.

"I...I certainly didn't think so, District Seven. I was prepared to be offended by you, not captivated." Her grin is elated, and there is a flutter in my stomach again. She twists another knot and my feet seem to leave the ground though I don't know why. Then just for a moment, she squeezes my hand and the world itself stops turning beneath my feet.

"You're kinda lost here aren't you, brainless?" My eyes snap to her face as the world races to make up for lost time and threatens to rip my footing away from me. I am shocked and it shows, but there is joy and ecstasy in my gaze brought by her playful name calling. Hearing her call me 'brainless,' like it's an endearing nickname and not an insult, steals the air from the room and I can't breathe, my heart feels on the verge of exploding, my head is muzzy and filled with cotton.

"I...no! No of course I'm not, what makes you say that? How can you say that?" She purrs and moves so close that I can feel the tickle of her words as she whispers in my ear, "You came to me this morning, you didn't speak but your eyes screamed what you wanted, and then just moments ago you admitted that I captivate you. To me you're an open book... brainless." She does it again, says the words that take my will from me, and I know that this time I have a stupidly slavish look on my face. I like her half-insult way too much, and it shows. "N-no I'm not. Of course I'm not. You're just... ummm... you're just..." I can't even form a coherent though anymore, and it's all because of this woman. Barely four years older than me but infinitely more experienced, she drives me wild and I can't even say why exactly.

"Keep up that stammering and I may just have to trap myself a little hunter for my very own..." I freeze at her implication, at the though that maybe she wants me the way I'm believing more and more that I want her. That she wants to take me back to her room and...

Before I can finish that thought, I bolt away from her and the knots that have me paying too much attention to her hands. My face, and other places, burning red, I run to the first station that occurs to me and find myself at the fire starting supplies with the District Threes. _'How appropriate.'_ I think, knowing that fire won't distract me but not caring. Somehow I don't mind the thoughts of how all-consuming fire is. Just how close my desire is to an open flame. Just how much I want to explore what it would mean to be the fire consuming Johanna's body. As I work with flint and steel, I watch the District Threes struggle to light their tinder with matches. They mutter to each other, constant calculations bouncing back and forth without affecting their success at all. Finally I can stand it no more, so I take pity on them and move to help.

As we talk and I teach them from practical experience, I learn about them. The man is called Beetee, and he is a quiet inventor full of thoughts and simple philosophical assertions. He won his games by setting a trap with electricity as I recall, and on the outside he was given a job with the Capitol. The woman is Wiress, a technical savant if Beetee is to be believed, and she has a tendency to leave her sentences hanging right in the middle. Beetee is used to working with her and finishes them for her.

Our conversation goes nowhere at first, then Wiress notices something. She points to the Gamemakers and mumbles, "Look." I follow her finger but don't see anything out of the ordinary. Instead, I see Plutarch Heavensbee standing among those gathered and assume he is what she meant. "Yes, he's been promoted to Head Gamemaker this year." She fidgets and I know I was wrong. "No, no. There by the corner of the table, you can just..." she whispers, her pause heavy and pregnant in the air until Beetee finishes for her, "Just make it out."

I look again and see nothing, but I trust them and continue scanning. Just as I am about to give up I see it, a patch of air that shimmers and dances. I turn to him for an explanation and he doesn't disappoint. "They've put up a forcefield between them and us this year. I wonder why." I blush again, this time at the memory of firing an arrow at the Gamemakers last year, pinning the apple from the mouth of their roast pig to the wall. I mumble about it probably being my fault and ask about the forcefield. They tell me that ideally you wouldn't be able to see it, but that patch is always there. The chink in the armor as it were, the weakest point in the field and the spot where it can be disrupted. All that phrase does is make me think of how easily Johanna has gotten to me, how close I want to let her get, and the feelings she elicits.

I look around for her and find her getting ready for a wrestling lesson. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that she is naked once again, but the oil causes her curves to glisten. She in entrancing and fascinating at the best of times, and now there is nothing I can do to break my attention away from her. In my mind, I retreat to last night with her arms around me and her scent teasing my nose. I remember her warmth, the pressure of her grip, and the tingle that her voice generated. In that daydream, I stayed on my feet and I started to say something to her, but it's always just out of reach. I can't hear what I would have said to her, but I can see what happens when I say it, and the heat in my face drops down to the join of my legs. My breathing grows heavy and I can feel a dampness between my thighs that I am unused to, and I barely resist the urge to slip my hand into the waistband of my training clothes to relieve the pent up tension.

I see in my thoughts those smirking lips close the gap between us, and then it's no longer my thoughts but a very vivid vision of my wishes. I can feel the soft pressure of her kiss, hot and demanding enough that I feel tongues of flame licking at my skin. I feel her fingers, strong from working in the forest, slipping into my hair and massaging my scalp. I walk with her in a daze to my room where she lays me down and slips into my bed with me, her toned body pressed against mine as she holds me close, the smell of pine wrapping around and enfolding me, sending me to sleep only to wake with the rising of the sun with her still there, asleep on my pillow. Then I realize... that smell isn't in my head, but right in front of me.

My eyes focus again and there she is, inches away from me, naked as the day she was born and still glistening with the sweat of exercise making her glow. Her eyes dance with mirth as she grins at me, and when she speaks it tugs all sorts of strings. "I guess I really do have your attention, Girl on Fire. Find me tonight and maybe I'll do something to _really_ make you moan my name..." She nips my ear, a little playfulness and a lot of teasing giving that one action the push needed to make my pulse thrum, the feeling of hummingbird wings battering against the walls of my chest. My eyes are glazed as she saunters away, her bare legs making the heat in my core pulse with every stride.

Training cannot be over quick enough for me. After the second episode, my attention is shot and everyone is staring at me knowingly, except for Peeta of course who has the grace to look a little hurt. He always was the better actor, though again I'm not sure that he is actually acting. When the ending bell chimes, I sprint for the elevators and manage to keep one to myself. On the ride up to our floor, I think of how Peeta looked. How hurt he appeared to be, and how it is my fault for not being interested, even if that is something that I can cannot change and don't actually even feel inclined to. He went down with me this morning knowing that my attention was somewhere else, but perhaps he wasn't prepared to see it quite so... blatantly.

He had his chance in the arena last year, and oh how I tried to make it believable. I tried to fall in love with him, I tried to make myself feel _something_ other than obligation to him. Somehow it never stuck, and I left the games feeling just as indebted to him for the bread as I had when we went in. After we got home, Gale even tried to get me to fall in love with _him_. All I could ever feel after that was awkwardness, since I hadn't even known that he felt that way about me. It never felt right, and no matter how much I tried I just couldn't get my heart into it. Neither one of them fit in my life, and now I'm starting to have a suspicion as to why that was and still is true.

The doors open on floor twelve and I hurry to my room to shower and change before dinner. I know that Peeta will tell Haymitch everything, and I need the solitude to figure out how to answer and counter anything he says about it. I step under the fall of the water, and suddenly my thoughts run wild again. I wish that the water was her lips, kissing away the stiffness and the sore muscles and the stress of the day. I wish that my hands were not my own, but hers. I wish that she was here with me, caressing the most intimate places of my body as she helps scrub me clean. I wish for her arms around me so that I can begin to understand what these feelings are, what they mean, and what I want. Most importantly to me, I wish to know what she wants, what she feels, what her desires are where I'm concerned. I feel I need to know...

By the time I make it to dinner, clean yet flushed and still excited, Peeta looks downright angry. Haymitch on the other hand is almost bouncing out of his seat with barely contained glee at finally understanding a little bit more about the hard-headed girl that he threw his lot in with last year. He manages to ask how training went today, so I tell him about meeting Wiress and Beetee and their lesson about forcefields. I tell him about the forcefield in the training center and how it's likely because of me, and I tell him how they had pointed out the chink in the armor to me. He laughs like I haven't heard him laugh in a year, and I calm down. It's good to hear Haymitch laugh, he doesn't do it enough, and when he does he looks younger. Even when Peeta bites out that Johanna(or as he says, "Your precious Johanna") calls them Nuts and Volts, his good mood doesn't falter and I stay centered. I even admit to myself that it kind of suits them, and when I say that with a smile it only makes him even more sullen.

Haymitch grins and says, "Speaking of the lumberjack, is our little burning girl harboring a bit of an actual crush? Are you perhaps dreaming of climbing into her arms like you did those trees last year?" I turn beet red, but I smile shyly and nod once, and he laughs again before muttering, "Explains so much about you..." Then he turns back to me and says, "So you want Wiress and Beetee, I can see that from what you told me of your conversation with them. I'll go ahead and believe that you want Johanna as an ally as well, so there's your pack. You're golden, sweetheart."

The rest of dinner passes speedily enough and I return to my room once more so I can try and catch a few hours of sleep. I know that I'll be going back to the roof tonight, so I want to rest a little. For the couple hours I manage to grab, I run through trees I don't recognize, and I'm surrounded by the scent of fresh pine. When branches touch me in passing, it's gentle and almost loving, and when I lay down to catch my breath, the earth beneath me is warm and soft.

I wake slowly, my eyes fluttering open just after midnight. At first I'm disoriented and saddened because I'm not in the woods anymore, because there is no pine to make my head swim, but then I register where I am and my nerves are buzzing again. I sit bolt upright with a big grin on my face and clamber out of bed so that I can sprint down the hall. Doors fly open in front of me as I brush them aside so that I can reach the roof, and once I'm free I stand and appreciate the moment. Out here, there is nothing but the open air and the breeze as it lifts my hair, and even though it smells of the city it still reminds me of home.

This time when I see her, I move forward and wait for her to hear my soft footsteps. When she turns to me, I can't help but smile and it's now her turn to look stunned. Her beauty hits me again and the piercing in my chest strikes right though my heart. I sit down next to her feeling like I'm floating to earth, and I murmur, "I wasn't sure you'd be here." She giggles and takes my hand, that simple movement tugging on my heart again. It's a sensation I'm getting used to rather quickly. "Where else would you be able to find me if not here?"

We sit like that for a few minutes, looking at each other while we hold hands, then I have to know. I lean forward slowly, breathing in the smell of her, the scent that reminds me so much of home. I know what I intend to do, but it still seems to startle her when my lips meet hers. For a moment all I can think is how warm and soft hers are, how different it is from kissing the boys, then she takes over. She kisses me with a fervor that no one has had before, like she needs it to live. Her kisses are hot, needy things that arch my back and send shivers over my flesh. Her fingers entwine in my hair and mine do the same in hers, until neither of us knows where we end and the other begins. I feel her tongue flick against my lips and I part them, welcoming her into my mouth as I tentatively explore the way she lights my senses. Where she touches me, flames nibble at me, and when her hands move on there is a yearning emptiness that follows and tries to fill itself again.

Finally, she pulls away and stares at me again. Her hazel eyes are so beautiful from this close that I lose myself in them. I don't know where my thoughts go, but when she speaks she calls me back only to shock me again. "You smell like home." she purrs, her forehead resting on mine and one hand on my face. I am stunned for sure, but I stay awake and I grin. "Really?" I ask, not realizing how much I need the answer until she nods. The singing in my heart soars and I moan for a moment before I reply to her again, "Well so do you, Jojo." I look at her through veiled eyes, wondering how she'll react to the nickname I wanted to try out. When she kisses me I know that she loves it, that I didn't need to worry that she wouldn't want me to name her, that she is claiming me and is letting me claim her too. I kiss her and drink up her joy and forget all about the world for tonight.


	3. Mockingjay Rising

Morning comes, and I don't even remember the night. The only thing I know is that Johanna and I were together for hours, and it made all the difference in the world for us. When I wake up, she has left another note for me on the pillow. "You're adorable when you sleep. See you in training brainless. ~J" I can't believe how quickly her name for me stuck and became our little joke, or how much it means to me. Everyone else sees me as the Girl on Fire, and if Snow is to believed there are those that see my stunt with the berries as an act of rebellion and are using my pin as a rallying symbol. They are calling me the Mockingjay, but... I just don't care, not in the face of the fiercest woman I know calling me 'brainless.' I stretch and smile at the memory of her lips, and the movement releases a puff of her scent from my pillow. I can feel her arms again, the closeness making the world recede, and I am sure that I had no nightmares.

I get dressed, finding the greenest clothes I can so that she is still wrapped around me and protecting me for the day. When I walk out of the room, I almost collide with Haymitch. I can see that he is unusually sober this morning, and yet he still grins when he sees me. He just gives me a thumbs up like he did last year and tells me to knock them dead today. I smile at his choice of words and saunter into the dining room for some food, only to see the time and realize that I have ten minutes to make it downstairs.

With a muffin in one hand and an apple in the other, I sprint for the elevators and hit the button for the training floor. When I get there, all of the others have already arrived. At least, it seems that way until I look around, looking for the spiky brown tresses of my lumberjack and don't see them anywhere. My heart plummets and I step out of the elevator, half-heartedly munching on my apple. I don't hear another elevator arrive, I don't hear the door open, I don't hear the sudden silence. I'm caught off guard when familiar arms slide around me, but the scent of pine soothes me almost as much as the tender kiss that touches my neck. Grinning, I hold up the apple and Johanna obliges me by taking a huge bite out of it. "Sweet and juicy," I hear her rasp into my ear from inches away. "I like the apple too, lover." I can only close my eyes and sigh contentedly at her words, knowing that she is the strength that I need.

Everyone lets out a collective breath and laughs, and suddenly it's like I've been accepted into the family or something. The others gather around us, and though they all tease us, nothing bothers us now. Not even the look of petulant jealousy on Peeta's face, the expression that says he finally understands why he was never enough for me and never would have been, the seething resentment for Johanna that is born of her ability to visibly calm the volatile Girl on Fire. Not even Brutus challenging us to a competition to see who can hit the most targets in thirty seconds. Finnick joins him with a grin, says it wouldn't be fair for him to go up against us two-on-one, and the three of them share a laugh. Right about then, I remember that none of them have actually seen me shoot more than a couple arrows, so I pull my new lover down and whisper in her ear, "I don't think this is going to be fair to them at all." She gives me this look, and I know I'm right. They are all underestimating me, even her. I try not to let it sting too much.

Brutus is up first, and he grabs every spear he can carry. He hits the buttons to start his program, and I have to admit that he impresses me. Every throw hits its mark, and some of them hit two or even three. When his time is up, his total is twenty-six. I can see Johanna's apprehension, so I stop pretending to be a good girl and grab her face, planting a solid and lingering kiss on her lips. I whisper against her mouth, "Win." Her smile is all I need to see, and then the program starts. Her throws are precise, and when she rolls and swings, her axe always hits for a kill. Twenty-three.

She is crestfallen, so I miss Finnick's exhibition because I'm consoling her string of apologies. She already thinks we've lost, and when I look up my stomach drops. Their score is fifty-four. This time, it is her that kisses me, her that tells me to win, and I know that I will somehow just so that I can reward her hope and her faith. There is no doubt, I cannot fail an order given to me by my strong lumberjack. I pick up the bow that feels the best, a golden recurve that feels almost alive in my hands, and two quivers of arrows. With one last look at her, I take a breath and start the program. From that point on, only the glowing targets exist. My hands are blurs as the grab arrow after arrow, and my eyes dart around the room. I duck and roll, shucking an empty quiver, and continue to fire. When a wave of five targets come at the end of the round, my bowstring hums a tune in my head and all five scatter. I didn't miss once, and when I look up at our score, I see a bright fifty-six standing in the air and grin. Then I notice how quiet it is and look behind me to see every tribute and trainer staring at me with awe.

For a moment, Brutus glares at me with something akin to hatred in his eyes, then he grins at Johanna and congratulates her on her team win. Finninck grins at both of us and throws a mock salute, then calls all the others off to training again. My District Seven girl however can't take her eyes off of me. I'm a little unnerved at first, then I don't have the room in my head for concern because her needy kisses are drowning me again and it's all I can do to breathe. When she purrs into my mouth, she raises bumps on my skin with her words. "If you can shoot like that, I can't _wait_ to find out what else those fingers can do."

We agree to train together from now on, though I doubt we would have done otherwise anyway, and in training we work with everyone. In the evening, she promises to come spend the night with me again and gives me one last kiss to hold me over for the next few hours. Even so, I am still unprepared for Haymitch to pounce on me first thing at dinner. "So, at least half the tributes have instructed their mentors to request you as an ally. I know it can't be your sunny personality." Peeta, who seems to have gotten over himself by now, grins and fills him in. "They saw her shoot. Actually, I saw her shoot, for real, for the first time. I'm about to put in a formal request myself." I grin at Haymitch's stunned expression and simply say, "Yeah, I really am that good." We eat in silence for which I am thankful, and when we are done, I turn to Peeta and say, "Request granted. Let's be allies." I smile so he knows it was going to happen anyway, then I go back to my room to wait.

* * *

Johanna's POV

I hate to do it without telling Katniss, but she is thinking like a martyr for a war we know is coming and I can't let her die anymore. I don't know that I ever could have, but now when I've actually met her and held her close, I can't even let myself think of her dying and trying to live without her. I know that if she died, I would follow right behind, and somehow I have to keep her and myself alive, because I also know that if I die, she will too. I didn't know how special she was until last night, until I slept without nightmares for the first time is six years. If Katniss is going to be the Mockingjay of the revolution, then I intend to make sure she's a living one. I know she needs me, and I need her more than I will ever admit, so her survival(_our survival_) is the most important goal in my world now.

I go up to floor twelve a little early, around nine, so I can get a chance to talk to Haymitch. I know he'll agree with me, he and I have always seen eye to eye. He sees me coming and grins knowingly, so I'm sure he knows where I intend to be soon, but I sit down with him and the grin fades. "What brings you my way, Johanna?" he queries. I fidget for a few minutes, suddenly unsure about what I'm asking, unsure if he'll be willing to endanger his own life the way he'll need to, but in the end it doesn't matter. I decide that blunt honesty is the best, so I look him in the eye and ask a question of my own. "How the fuck are you going to keep the Girl on Fire alive? I need her breathing and full of life, so I need you to tell me how to help keep her that way." He appraises me for a moment, then speaks in a tone I've never heard from him before. "You need to stay alive too, you know that as well as I do, because we both know that you are the only person now who can stand beside her and convince her to fight." I know he's right.

* * *

Katniss' POV

I watch the minutes crawl by, willing them to move faster though they never do. Ten o'clock inches towards me, bringing with it the promise of strong fingers and soft lips. I know I'm restless, I know I'm acting like a silly girl with a schoolyard crush, but just the thought of having Johanna that close to me makes my entire body sing. Just before the clock strikes the hour, there is a knock at my door and I'm off the bed and opening it so fast that I almost pass out in her arms. She laughs and steadies me, and for all the smiles I get, I still hadn't heard her laugh until just now. If clumsiness is how to get her to do it, then I'll be clumsy whenever it is safe.

My gentle lumberjack sweeps me up in her arms and carries me to my bed whilst kicking the door shut. She twists and tumbles to the mattress with herself on the bottom so that I have no choice but to steady myself over her. Doing so puts my face just over hers, close enough that I can feel her panting against my lips, and we are both flushed. I can't help but wonder how I got so lucky, how I was given this opportunity for bliss, and I decide right then to change our fate and rewrite history again. "Jojo... I'm gonna fight. I don't just mean in the arena, I mean I'm going to fight for us, to get us out of there alive. Help me?" I can see the shock on her face, the surprise that I decided I wasn't going to take this lying down any more than I did last year, and something else that I can't read but I think is pride. "Yes. Yes! Yes of course I'll help! You did it once and gave more than a few of us hope, you can do it again if we make a strong pack. We can do anything, just so long as you stay with me and stay alive!" Then her lips are mashed over mine and all thought stops.

We kiss and cuddle for what seems an eternity, and sometime during the night we fall asleep together. I don't remember my dreams that night, but nothing can compare to having Johanna Mason protecting me through the darkness. I can smell her there, feel her warmth as it comforts me in the wee hours, snuggle into her arms and play the little spoon. I know she sleeps without nightmares again, and waking up next to her in the best part of my day, especially after we have both had a full night of peace.

We prepare for our individual sessions today, trying to decide how we're going to present ourselves. Somehow though, we cannot concentrate on anything and it all blurs together. The tributes do their exhibitions, Peeta and I both make a mess, and Johanna calms me down after. We watch the scores, and when her seven flashes up we crack jokes about how she matched her district. The I fulfill my promise to make history once more when Peeta and I score twelves, but suddenly it's not funny anymore. Jo and I realize that the Gamemakers just painted a target on my back, and that means that our plan to get out alive just became that much more difficult to realize. She soothes my tremors and quiets my screams, then when I've been silent for a few minutes she attempts to switch us back to being happy. She digs her fingers into my ribs, and when my arms snap down to defend against her assault, she switches to just behind my knees and I end up squealing and trying to squirm away, but she won't let me. We laugh and talk all night long, even going up to the roof to watch the sun rise. Then we fall asleep in each other's arms again, at peace and wishing we could freeze this moment and make it last forever. We wake up to eat, then return to the roof to watch the sun set in the west.

She promises to find me tonight before the interviews, then we're off to our stylists again to be prepped to meet Caesar. My prep team gets emotional on me, and it almost breaks my heart. Octavia, with her plump frame and her green skin, cries immediately and has to leave. Flavius almost makes it to the end, but breaks down sobbing and can't keep his bright orange curls out of his face to say anything before he runs too. Venia is the only one still with me when Cinna arrives, and just before she leaves as well, she looks me in the eye and says, "We would all like you to know what a...privilege it has been to make you look your best." Then she is gone.

I look at Cinna, the most amazing and quiet man I have ever met in the Capitol, as he stares at me with a solemn expression. He knows that this will probably be the last time that he ever gets to see me, no matter what happens. This is the worst parting I have to look forward to, but there are no tears from him, just as he promised me. He lays down the garment bag hanging from his arm and pulls me into a warm embrace, and that says everything he cannot. When we pull apart, I ask, "So, what am I wearing tonight?" He smiles a little regretfully and replies, "President Snow put the order for the dress in himself." Then he unzips the bag and reveals one of the many wedding dresses I wore in the photo shoots when Peeta and I still thought we had a chance of stopping what was coming. Heavy silk with a plunging neckline, studded with soft white pearls in rose patterns and a fitted bodice, the one with sleeves that hang almost to the floor. I feel a note of finality in the choice, almost like he is showing me off to the world wearing a reminder of my failure as my death shroud. "Even though they announced the Quarter Quell the night of the photo shoot, people still voted for their favorite and this was the winner. The President says you're to wear it tonight. Our objections were ignored."

I rub the silk between my fingers, dreading walking out on that stage tonight in this dress. I know what everyone in the audience will see, and I'm afraid of what Johanna will see. I can't bear the thought of her being hurt by this, and yet I don't see how anything else could happen now. I suppose it always had to be this way. "It would be a shame to waste such a nice dress." I mumble, dejected and full of sorrow. Cinna carefully helps me into my gown, adjusting it over my frame until it hangs just right, and I am staggered by how much it weighs. "Was it always this heavy?" I ask, and then he smiles that smile that I know means he's up to something. "I had to make some slight alterations because of the lighting," is all he replies, and I have to be satisfied with that.

"You're ravishing," he murmurs. "Now Katniss, because your bodice is so fitted I don't want you raising your arms above your head. Well, not until you twirl, anyway." I look at him and smile, glad to know that I was right and that he has something special planned. "Will I be twirling again tonight?" He nods with a twinkle in his eyes and tells me, "I'm sure Caesar will ask you. If he doesn't, suggest it anyway, but not until the end. It's to be your grand finale." He cups my cheek one last time, then guides me into place at the end of the line. The tributes fall silent for a few minutes, then Finnick speaks up. "I can't believe Cinna put you in that thing." I know what he means, but I want to make sure everyone here knows the real reason. "He didn't have a choice. President Snow made him." The siblings from District One cry that I look ridiculous, but it's Johanna's reaction I want. She walks right up to me and takes my hands, a look of fury in her eyes. She stays there for a moment, then very softly hisses, "Make him pay for it."

I nod and smooth my hands over my dress once she lets go, nerves getting the better of me. I have no clue what to say or do tonight. I hear the anthem play and Caesar, friend to us all, laugh and start his interviews. Cashmere starts us off with a speech about how she can't stop crying when she thinks about how the people of the Capitol will feel about losing us, and she punctuates it perfectly with sobs. Her brother Gloss recalls the kindness that was shown to him and his sister here when they arrived, when they won, and every year since that they've been mentors. Beetee very thoughtfully says that the Hunger Games and the Quells were written into law by men, so by men they should be able to be unwritten. Finnick stands before them all and recites a poem about his one true love, and half the audience faints when they believe it is about them, but we know better.

I really focus when Johanna gets up on stage. I hadn't had time to appraise her before, but when I look now I can see the stunning floor-length green dress she wears. It looks like bark and leaves have spontaneously grown all over her body, and somehow she looks even more unearthly and warlike than usual. She starts her interview by saying that she isn't sad when she thinks about this Quell. It doesn't make her want to cry, and it doesn't make her think of kindness shown in the past. No, what she feels about it is anger, this seething rage that festers and boils just beneath her breastbone. Then she looks right at the cameras and says, "You want to know what I really think about this? I think you can all go fuck yourselves! All of you sodomizing, shit-eating, scumbag lowlifes can just take your games, and your stupid platitudes, and cram them up your fucking asses!" Then she throw the middle fingers of both hands up and stomps to her chair, where she flops down with a huff.

Caesar is left standing there flabbergasted, never having had such an angry rant occur on his show, but he quickly gets his flow back. He cracks a couple jokes and the evening is back on track. Chaff and Seeder speak their piece as well, both of them saying that if the President is as powerful as everyone believes, he should be able to change things and make them better. In fact, he must truly have that power, but believe that no one really cares or that it doesn't matter to people. By the time I am called to the stage, the audience is an absolute wreck, there are tears everywhere, and pockets of them are crying out about the injustice of it all. Some are calling out that there must be something that can be done, but no one moves to stop the show or change anything.

When I step onto that stage, my dress shining in the bright lights, a wave of horrified moans sweeps the audience and even Caesar's professionalism shows some cracks. He tries to quiet them so I can speak, but it takes up more of my three minutes than he likes. When we can finally be heard, he gets straight to the point. "So, Katniss, obviously this is a very emotional night for everyone. Is there anything you would like to say?" I don't even have to try to make my voice tremble and crack, because it's all getting the better of me now. "Only that I'm so very sorry that there won't be any wedding... but I'm glad that you at least get this chance to see me in my dress. Isn't it just... the most beautiful thing?" I twirl slowly, raising my arms above my head, and seek out Johanna to have the strength to bear what I know is coming. As I spin, flames lick up my body and consume my dress, pearls falling like white rain upon the stage. When the last of the fire has died away, I am left standing there in a dress the color of coal with my arms spread wide, patches of white just under my arms. My pin glitters in the light and everyone can see... Cinna has made me into a mockingjay.

The audience is stunned, and Caesar himself cannot summon the words in this moment. A tear falls from my eye as I bow, because now I know why Cinna was hugging me like it was the last time. It very well might be the last time I see him, because with this one act he has thrown his own lot against the President, and no one survives that. I smile as best I can, but when I see him in the audience, his face beatific and at peace, I lose it and run crying to my seat. I cannot take this, I cannot bear to see him, this beautiful man, so ready for what he knows must come. Johanna rises from where she is and comes to sit on the arm of my chair, rubbing my back and making soothing noises, and the audience breaks down. In that one moment, there is not a dry eye in the house. To see their beloved tributes, the victors they have come to love, so injured, so angry and sad and hurt that they must turn to each other for solace because now they have no one else, shatters their resolve.

Caesar weeps for several minutes, then summons his strength and courage from I know not where and calls Peeta up on stage. I hear him swear to himself that he will soldier on, for us, for the victors that he must say goodbye to. Peeta steps into the light, and as handsome as he is, as well dressed as Portia could make him, he looks broken. He tugs on even my heartstrings with the look on his face. His eyes show that he is betrayed by what is happening, that he is sorrowful for what he has lost, and that he feels for each and every person in the audience. He cannot get into the easy rapport that he has had with Caesar before, so the announcer gets right to the heart of matters once more.

"So, Peeta, what was it like when, after all you've been through, you found out about the Quell?" Peeta looks at him, a haunted, dead look in his eyes, and whispers just loud enough to be heard through the mic, "I was in shock. I mean, one minute I'm seeing Katniss so full of life, so taken with her personal crusade to make District Twelve a little brighter, and then..." He breaks off, as if he cannot bear to continue, so Caesar speaks for him. "Then you realized there would never be a wedding." The baker's son only nods, then looks up with what seems to be determination. "Do you think you can keep a secret?" The announcer laughs, put at ease once again by the wordsmith that is Peeta, and says that he is sure they can. "There was a wedding after all. Katniss said that she couldn't bear to live what may be the last days she has left without letting the person she loves most know that they hold her heart, that she was theirs completely. When she told me that, I cried because I knew that no amount of time would ever be enough."

Everyone else looks stunned, but Johanna and I hear what he's really saying. She looks at me, her hazel eyes on fire with her passion, and though we cannot fulfill the promises she is making to me with that look just yet, I know that tonight will be a very good night indeed. The audience only has eyes for Peeta's personal tragedy though, so no one notices the heat rippling between us before he shatters it. "I know exactly what she meant when she said it, and I share her sorrow on one other point too. She said that the only regret she has is that she will never be able to give her love the children they deserve. She had all of that taken from her by the Games." His words nearly cause a riot, and Johanna and I are both crying for the words spoken by him. He has given us the only gift that matters to us, an acknowledgement of the bond she and I have come to share, and though he does not know we will fight to survive, to live past this calamity, he is at peace with the choices we have made. When he joins us, we clasp hands and slowly but surely, all down the line the other victors do the same until we are all presenting a united image. Though we know that soon many of us will die, for tonight we stand together. Peeta's left hand is free, and he uses it to raise the salute of District Twelve. When silence falls, I clear my throat and sing as clearly as I can... the four note trill given to me by Rue. The lights black out a moment later as the Capitol falls into chaos.


	4. Death in the Family

**A/N:** I just wanted to say thank you to all the people that have read and reviewed over the last three days! It's kind of awesome to know that with one story and three days, I can surpass the reviews my longer-running fic has garnered over two or three months, and also manage to get almost 1000 views.

Now, as to what I'm writing. I know that the last chapter was more than a little upsetting at the end there, I was crying as I wrote it. It was a special kind of hard for me, because Cinna is one of my favorite characters and I know that he's going to die. I felt I had to give him a good send off, and so I had to write it the way I did to feel like I was paying tribute to him. I also had to rewrite Peeta's interview, because I felt like it would be a special kind of cruel for him to know the truth about Kat and Jojo and still go ahead with the "we're already married, and by the way she's knocked up." He's too kind and too good to do that, hence the ambiguous language that would still have the Capitol people think he was saying one thing when he was really saying "go for it ladies."

00000000

It's chaos on-stage, and we cannot see. The studio is so dark that the only kind of guide any of us have is the hand of the victor to our left as Peeta drags us in the direction he came from. He leads us to the stairs and then lets go of my hand, pushing me on and staying to make sure everyone else gets out safely too. I can't breathe anymore, the air in my lungs refuses to escape and I can't find oxygen in it anymore. My head is spinning with the events of tonight, the things we all said, the dress I wore and the man it condemned, and the pain of knowing that no matter what happened tonight, tomorrow we will still all be trying to kill each other. Johanna keeps me on my feet and running until we reach the lifts, and once we're in, the others hit the button to close the doors, leaving us alone. She pushes me up against the wall and presses herself against me, stroking my hair and murmuring softly to me, no real words coming out of her mouth as she tries to calm me so I can breathe once more.

She doesn't ask if I want her to stay with me tonight, she just hits the button for the twelfth floor and keeps holding on. By the time the doors open again, my lungs are working but my vision is swimming and I can't walk or see at all. She slips an arm around my waist and guides me down the hall, her steps slow and measured as she fusses over me. When I burst into tears when we reach my door, she lifts me off the ground and carries me to the bed, the click of the latch behind us not making it into our awareness. She lays me down and starts to undress me, a look of determination on her face as she unzips my dress and shimmies it off of me. She doesn't even blink tonight when I'm bare, she just strips herself with quick motions and climbs into bed with me, pulling the sheets over us. I'm still crying, I can't seem to stop, but I snuggle as far into her body as I can and wrap her in my arms, breathing her scent. Now that she doesn't have to be strong, she tears up as well, sobbing quietly because she knows I'm in pain and there is nothing she can do to help me.

We lay like that, crying and holding on, for over an hour. Eventually, when there are no more tears to weep, she lifts my face to hers and kisses me again and again. These kisses are different from the ones we usually share. Instead of passion and need, her kisses tonight are apologies for the friend I am about to lose, tender touches to dry my eyes, caresses to convey everything we couldn't say with cameras watching. Tonight, she tells me a story without words, a tale of loss and pain and betrayal, a tale of shared grief. When we cannot keep our eyes open any longer, we sleep wrapped around each other knowing that nothing will be the same anymore. By uniting tonight against the Capitol, we the victors stood up and showed Snow that we are not his toys or his puppets, and now things will be even worse for us. Yet still we must hold on, stand strong, and keep fighting.

When the sun rises, we lie still in our embrace. When Effie knocks to wake me, we stir and share a silent oath. _Snow will pay for everything that he has done. Remember who the real enemy is._ We get dressed in silence, but we cannot and will not hide anymore. We walk out of my room hand in hand, and though Effie seems surprised that Johanna was with me through the night, she just fans herself and tries not to tear up again. I can see that her eyes are red and puffy, so I think it is likely that she has spent the night crying as well, for Cinna and for me. Today we must be strong, so we eat in silence, filling up on as much rich food as we can hold without becoming sick. We part ways, Johanna and I, so that she can finish her own preparations and I can say goodbye to Haymitch and Effie for what may be the last time. I will not accept it, in fact after last night I will fight harder than ever to get my lumberjack and I out of the arena alive, but we cannot know what Snow has in store for us after the interviews.

"Effie, you were... the best escort Peeta and I could have ever hoped for. You did everything right, everything you could to make sure that we were all that we could become, and there is nothing else we could ask of you." I say to her as I take hold of her hands. Peeta steps right up to us and places his hand over his heart. "You deserved so much more than what we gave you. On what will probably be the last morning you ever see us, just know that you have our love." There he goes again, outdoing me without even trying. Even though it pricks my pride a little, I smile because he has said exactly the right thing just like always. He and I turn to Haymitch, who waves his hand to forestall any speeches. He pulls us into his arms and just hugs us, keeping a straight face though Peeta and I can both see that he wishes he could drink himself comatose. When he pulls back, he claps us both on the back and says, "Stay alive." We grin at what has become an old joke amongst us, the victors of Twelve. Then he looks me in the eye and says, "Katniss, when you're in the arena, just... remember who the real enemy is." With that, we turn and leave to go to prep.

Portia takes Peeta with her to one hover, and I am relieved to see Cinna waiting for me at the ladder of the transport that will take me to the arena. He smiles at me like always, radiating the warmth that I associate with him. He takes me by the hand as we enter the hover and doesn't let go or let me look away from him at all during the flight. I spend that time memorizing every feature of his face, from his warm caramel skin to the gold eyeliner that he wears and the multiple earrings in his ears. When the windows black out, I know we're almost there and I take a heavy breath. We walk the halls and I'm in a daze, nearly paralyzed with the thought that I'm about to enter another arena and I could lose everything in a flash. In the Launch Room, Cinna dresses me in the blue jumpsuit and purple belt we were provided this year. He doesn't have any insight to offer about what to expect, so we don't speak. When I'm standing in the tube and waiting for the platform to rise, he and I press our hands against the glass that separates us. We don't see the Peacekeepers coming, so the splash of crimson on the surface in front of me startles me and I scream for him. They beat him badly, but I can see that he is still alive as they drag him away, and I'm crying again. I feel the platform begin to move, so I furiously scrub my eyes and try to stand tall for him.

The first thing I notice when my head is above ground is the smell of salt and wet. The arena all around me is water and I think that Finnick is the dangerous one out here. The countdown beats against my skull, but I'm staring at the Cornucopia because I see what I want. Scattered around the tiny island it's on are the weapons I need. I look around but there is no one near me that I want to protect, so I make up my mind to be the first to get there so I can arm myself and start to carry out my plan. I must protect Johanna, I must stay alive for her, and I must take out as many competitors as I can here at the beginning. When the gong sounds, I am off the platform and slicing through the water in a mad race to get to one of the narrow strips of rock that seem to be spaced like spokes of a wheel. It seems just a few seconds and my hands are pulling me up, my legs are pumping like mad, and I am closing in on the bow that I need.

My hands close on it, and then there is someone behind me and I yank an arrow out of the quiver that I don't have time to grab and draw the string as I spin and drop to one knee. There stands Finnick, trident in one hand and his other hand raised as if he's showing me something. Then I see it, a golden bangle that I seem to remember Haymitch wearing a day ago. "If you swim that fast, I suppose it's a good thing we're allies isn't it?" he drawls, a worried look on his face as she stares down the shaft of my arrow. I have a second to consider, then he yells at me to duck and his trident whistles over my head as I fall to the ground. I see Enobaria trying to sneak up behind him and fire between his legs. It startles him, but when he hears the splash of her diving to escape my shot he just nods in thanks and goes to retrieve his weapon from the body of the male District Five tribute. I notch another arrow and sink it into Gloss' calf without hesitating. With no immediate threats, Finnick and I grab as many weapons as we can and dash away with me firing at Brutus as we go. He blocks the arrow with his belt and dives into the water again, and I don't have the time to try and kill him again. Finnick dives into the water without a word and I wonder if he's abandoning me until I see that he's swimming right for Peeta, who has yet to leave his platform.

I knock another arrow just in case, but I am almost certain that Haymitch is telling me to trust him by giving him the bangle, so I also keep a look out for Johanna. I can't see her and I begin to panic, but I take a breath to calm myself and hold onto the image of her from her first Games. I can believe in that Fury, and seeing her like that assuages my panic long enough to notice the other District Four, an old woman by the name of Mags, paddling her way to us slowly. Since Finnick went to grab Peeta, I drop my bow and quivers and dive back into the water myself to aid her in reaching land faster. I get her back to my weapons as Finnick and the baker's son rise out of the waves and extend their hands. I immediately turn to Peeta and ask, "Where is Johanna, could you see her?" He shakes his head, but Finnick speaks up and assures me that she'll be fine. I sense that there is more he isn't telling me, but I don't have time to wonder.

Then I have another panic attack, right out in the open. I see in my mind an image of Johanna crumpled against the far side of the Cornucopia where I would not find her, and there are black spots dancing in my vision. I run blindly away from the island and the image of my fallen lover, crashing into the trees and only just staying on my feet with my bow and my quivers. I can hear Finnick and Peeta calling after me, and soon I can hear them closing the gap. I fall to my knees and try to breathe, repeating over and over _'She's alive. She's alive. She wouldn't die like this, she's alive.'_ in my head. I can feel strong hands on my shoulders that I know do not belong to Peeta, but at this moment I do not care. I need the contact to ground me in reality.

He helps me stand as Peeta arrives with Mags on his back. We are all out of breath except for her, and the heat in this jungle is terrible and sticky. We know we cannot drink the water at the Cornucopia, so Peeta suggests that we search for a source of fresh water. We aren't far from the top of the ridge, and we all agree that perhaps we'd be safer on the other side of it while we look for water. I toss Peeta a knife I had stashed in my belt and he takes the lead, slashing away vines and brush from in front of us as we trek up. We don't have far to go when I realize that there is no other side, at least not for us. I'm the farthest down the hill but I see the shimmering in the air. It doesn't move with me, it doesn't change, it just hangs there, and I remember what Beetee said about the chink in armor, the weak point of the forcefield. My warning cry comes too late, and there is a flash and a buzzing sound before Peeta is flung backwards several feet.

My feet crash through the undergrowth and I sprint to his side, diving to the ground to press my ear to his chest. I think I expect to hear his heart racing and unsteady, but instead I hear... silence. There is nothing, no heartbeat, no breath, nothing but the smell of charred flesh. A wounded howl rises from deep in my gut and spills out into the air even as Finnick pushes me aside and starts to pump his chest. Nothing changes, not when he tilts Peeta's head back and breathes for him, and not when he pumps on his ribs, getting more frantic with each passing moment. I howl, and Finnick pumps. Nothing changes, at least not until we both hear a splintering crack and Peeta's chest fails to spring back into place. In that moment, we both know... Peeta is really dead.

There is a sound of thunder, someone barreling through the trees and coming closer every moment, and Finnick and I both grab our weapons. We are raw at having already failed to keep one of our number alive, and when our eyes meet for a moment an unspoken agreement passes between us. There is only one person in this arena who will survive getting close enough to see us, and she could be anywhere. Unless by some miracle the crashing is Johanna trying desperately to find us, there will be another corpse on the ground here in a moment. I have my arrow drawn and ready, Finnick has risen to his feet so fluidly I wonder how he managed it and has his trident balanced, and then...

"Katniss!? Katniss, goddammit where are you?! KATNISS!" My bow hits the ground and I am flying through the air using the nearest tree as a springboard. I see her just before I push off and I cry her name so she knows I'm coming and doesn't kill me by accident. "Jojo!" I see her look up and time slows to a standstill. I am suspended in the air, she is between one step and the next, and our eyes meet with a frantic need to confirm that the other is really there. She drops her axes and the flow of the world resumes, and I land on top of her tumbling us both to the ground. My arms wrap around her in a crushing hug and I'm babbling bits of sentences that don't connect in any particular order. Finnick stands over us, watching the trees as Johanna runs her hands over me checking for injuries. She doesn't find any, so asks, "Katniss, why were you screaming? You sounded like you were dying!" I stop mumbling into her chest and look at her, my guilt plain on my face. "Peeta's dead. I saw the forcefield but I didn't warn him fast enough. It... it zapped him and..." I trail off, fighting to breath around the lump in my throat. Finnick whispers the rest of my sentence for me. "And I couldn't save him. I tried to resuscitate him, but... I couldn't. I got desperate, tried too hard. He's gone." Johanna cradles me into her chest and rocks me. I wonder again how I ended up so lucky, how I ever deserved a woman like her, because she understands. It's not losing Peeta that made me howl, it's losing someone I had chosen as an ally.


	5. Loss of Reason

**A/N:** So, this is kind of a heavy chapter. It wasn't easy for me to write, because I hate the Games and because I had to change so much after Peeta's death. Like, there is so much of the story that is Peeta and Katniss, and that all had to be rewritten because I didn't let Finnick revive him. Still though, I had fun writing certain parts...

With that in mind, if you don't want to read anything lemony, you should probably skip the section in italics. Not the whole section, but where it says "I try to show her what I need," you should probably just skip to the end of the italics. On the other hand, if you don't mind a little smut, read on!

00000000

_~J~_

I hold her as she sobs over the death of her friend, and though I truly do understand why she's crying, I still feel a little spike of jealousy poking at my heart. Perhaps it makes me as horrible as everyone else believes me to be, but I console that spike with the knowledge that Peeta really is dead, that he is gone and there is nothing he can do to take my love away from me. When at last her tears begin to abate, I lift her face and look into her eyes, my regret shining through as I say to her, "I'm sorry Girl on Fire, but I have to go. I gotta find Nuts and Volts, they have a plan to get us out of here." My voice is soft enough that I know the cameras can't hear, and I'm glad I even took the risk because she smiles at me, and though it is wet and not very confident, it is still a Katniss smile and my heart swells.

She lets go of me and then Finnick takes her place, just for a moment, just long enough to tell me to be careful out there and keep my axe close. Then he pulls me to my feet and I pick up my weapon, and when I turn for one last look at my Mockingjay, I can see that she is holding out a belt with three throwing axes in a holster and there's a huge grin on her face. "Thought you might like a few extra toys, so I got you these. Wasn't sure when I'd be able to give them to you, but here they are." I take the belt and strap it to my waist without losing her eyes, without letting go of the attention we share, and I use that look to tell her all the things I cannot say just yet. _'Stay alive. I love you. I will find you. No matter how far, I will find you so just stay alive.'_

* * *

_~K~_

Hours have passed and still we can't seem to find water. I can feel my throat constrict every time I swallow, but it isn't painful yet, not like last year. Finnick and Mags are keeping things light, and I appreciate it. Somehow, when they are around I can't focus on the horrible things that have happened to us already, and that is exactly what I need. It also keeps me from thinking of Johanna, out there on her own and searching for two people who may or may not be dead.

When the last of the daylight fades, we decide to set up camp. I leave Finnick and Mags to take care of that since he has a sly grin on his face when he mentions shelter, and I ghost into the jungle to try and find water. I spiral outward around my teammates, staying close in case they need me, but I lose heart the more I search without finding anything, not even a muddy puddle. I do see these large squirrel-rat things in the trees, their tails wrapped around the branches and their eyes watching me with no fear whatsoever. We need food as well since all the Cornucopia had was weapons, so I shoot one down. When I pick it up though...

"Finnick!" I cry as I dash straight back to camp. "Finnick, look! This tree rat thing, its muzzle is wet!" He looks at me with clear and happy eyes. "that means there must be water nearby," he chuckles, "Do you know where it is?" I shake my head no, but then we both hear a tinkling sound and look up. It's only then that I realize I dove through the doorway of a small hut to get to Finnick, and that when I hit the ground I landed on a springy mat of woven grass. "Whoa... nice digs..." I murmur as the fisherman steps out to grab something. He comes back with a parachute, and inside the little box it carried there is a sliver tube. We puzzle over it until I remember the wet muzzle of the rat we still haven't tried to cook and the teeth in its mouth. Without saying a word, I snatch the tube and go to the nearest tree, stabbing it into the trunk and knocking it in with a rock. After a few moments, clear water begins to run, and I grin at him.

* * *

_~J~_

I have searched for them for hours, the two people in the arena that I see as the weakest, because of one thing Haymitch said to me. "Beetee has a plan, get him to Katniss alive and he can get you both out." Fuck you, Haymitch. Fuck you.

Then in the distance, I see them. Nuts is bent over Volts, and it looks like she's trying to take care of something, like he was injured. I sprint to reach them as the sky clouds over, and I sigh with relief. I have found our ticket out of here, and it's about to rain. I laugh and look up, only to find that what falls from the clouds is not water... but blood.

* * *

_~K~_

I am woken by the sudden silence in the middle of the night. The lightning has stopped, and the murmur of the rain has gone as well, and now there is nothing. Somehow, it smells wrong. Like a bad wound. I creep out of the hut, cursing myself and Finnick for forgetting to set a watch schedule, to see what the silence brings. At first I only see mist and it seems that everything is normal. After all, rain falling as it cools down leads to mist, every hunter knows that. But still, something about it bothers me. It seems too uniform, almost like the fire in the arena last year, like it's made my more intelligent hands than falling water. I reach out as it gets closer, and that is all the proof I need.

I scream in pain when it touches my skin, and all I can feel is razorwire dipped in acid and running up the nerves of my arm. I stumble back and shake the others awake, crying that we need to go and we need to go now. They don't understand until they see me cradling my other hand, then they get up silently and we run. The mist fills the space we just left and at first we think we'll be alright, that we'll outrun it. Then I feel the nips of the cloud on my ankles and I begin to stumble. If it's catching me, then the others are being injured too. I turn to meet Finnick and I see that both he and Mags are covered in burns. He staggers bravely on, but he won't last long without help. I grab him under one arm and try to tug him on faster while keeping him upright, but soon he can't go on carrying Mags and I'm having enough trouble that I can't take over. Before we can stop her, she kisses him on the cheek and hops off his back, turning into the mist. We stay frozen for a moment, then run as fast as we can and still it's not enough. I trip and tumble down a steeper slope, accidentally bringing Finnick with me, and when we stop rolling we cannot move.

I know we are about to die, but... the mist has stopped. We are safe, and I register that we are on sand instead of leaves.

* * *

_~J~_

I stagger almost blindly through the trees, barely able to see through the curtain that my hair has become since the blood rain. I stop every few minutes to make sure that Volts is still with us, and every time he somehow is. Maybe Nuts is better at first aid than I thought. I move on quickly, she's getting on my nerves just saying 'tick, tock, tick, tock' without end. I have to get out of here, return to Katniss and some fucking sanity. First though, I need to not be soaked in blood. I feel like a roll of fly paper, as sticky as I've become since the rain stopped.

Finally, I can see a reprieve when the trees start to thin out and I can see the beach. I holster the axe in my right hand and turn to grab Volts, hoisting his arm over my shoulder and pretty much carrying him out of this fucking jungle. Little miss Nuts runs after us, still repeating 'tick, tock' every couple seconds, and I can't take it anymore. When Volts collapses on the sand I let him go and turn to her and shove her as hard as I can, all of my frustration just surging up. I lost Blight, who I guess really isn't a big loss but he was my mentor when I was in the Games, and Katniss lost Peeta. We're in the Games again, and here I am getting two tech nuts when I should be with the woman I love. I scream at her as she slowly rises to her feet again, "Will you just shut the fuck up? I can't take anymore of your goddamn tick tocks!"

I hear my name called from down the beach and I look up. There's Finnick running towards me, and then a tiny form running around him and kicking sand up higher than her own head with as hard as she's running. I drop my axe so that there's no chance I can hurt her, and when she slams into me again, everything is alright. The world is fixed, and I can put up with anything. When I look at Finnick though, I see the burns that cover his face and his neck, and I register that the top half of his jumpsuit is missing. The burns continue onto his chest, and I assume that his back is worse. I'm almost afraid to, but I look down at Katniss anyway, and I see that she is worse still. Her hair is choppy and uneven, and there are angry red marks that cover most of her body. There is so little untouched skin that I am amazed she can even stand contact, and all that survived of her clothing was her bra and enough of her jumpsuit to cover her from her waist to her thighs.

* * *

_~K~_

As the sun rises, I stroke Jo's now clean hair and remember the night before.

_I hear Finnick call Jo's name and we both stand out of the saltwater. Somehow it had cured us of the effects of the mist, and now we sit in it just because it cools our wounds, but we're both running. Finnick has the head start, but I'm the faster runner and I have a target. She opens her arms, and though I'm worried about why she's covered in red, I dive right into her embrace and laugh a truly happy laugh as we tumble to the beach. She looks at me and she's got this look of pain on her face and I worry that I've hurt her until she asks quietly, "What happened to you?"_

_I explain about the mist, how it chased us out of the jungle, how it felt when it touched us. I tell her what happened to Mags, and then we both just hold Finnick as he finally lets himself feel the grief of losing a part of his family. I tell her how we've been pretty much just sitting in the water because of how good it feels, and then she smacks her lips and I realize that she probably hasn't had a drink._

_I tell Finnick to take care of Nuts and Volts, grinning as I say it because it makes Jo obscenely happy to hear those names come from my mouth. Then I take her hand and lead her back to camp to grab my bow and the spile. We walk into the forest a few meters and I set it into the tree, taking a quick drink before I let her step forward. Her moans of ecstasy are almost erotic and I find myself squirming a bit, until I happen to look up and see the branches are lined with small orange creatures. They aren't doing anything right now, but they are staring at us and I feel like any sudden movement will set them off. I quietly call her name and tell her to take the spile out and slowly walk to me, but to get the tool she has to move too harshly. The critters start to screech and divebomb us, and though I fire as quickly as I can it's not enough. She busies her axe and slips the spile into her belt, but even working together, there are too many and I can't stop them all._

_Just before one sinks its teeth into her, we hear another screech, a human sound, and one of the District Six tributes lunges out of the trees and snatches the critter off of Jo. She sinks her knife into it as it clamps its mouth around her throat and they die together, but she just saved Johanna for me. The fight continues, but Finnick has now joined us and his trident turns the tide for us. We stand facing out, Jo and Finnick using their weapons as extensions of their own arms, and me thinning the herd before they reach us. Just as I notch my last arrow, the critters stop attacking and slowly fade into the trees. We pant for a bit, then we laugh, then Jo sets the spile again and we drink all we can. Finnick goes to get Wiress and Beetee so they can drink as well, and Jo and I gather my arrows. When we return to the beach, she drops her weapons and I do the same, and we race to the water. I win, though not by much, so I proudly grab her and sit her down between my legs. I carefully wash her hair out, using every motion to caress her and tell her that I love her and the water runs red. Eventually though, she is clean and leaning against me with a languid smile on her face, and I know that in that moment we are both content._

_We trudge up onto land to the hut that Finnick had made for camp after we healed up and I push her inside. Finnick sits up and grins at us, saying he'll take the first watch, which also conveniently means that he'll be out with the other two and we'll have the shelter to ourselves. For the first time since we entered this hell, I take her face in my hands and I kiss her, my lips sealed to hers with my need and my love as my tongue slips between us to dance with hers. Her hands stroke my bare skin and it burns, a fire that I want to be consumed with entirely. I gasp for air, and for the words to say, but none come so instead I try to show her what I want. I try to show her what I need._

_While I keep her lips engaged with my own, my hands move to the neck of her jumpsuit and slowly unzip her. With the room to move, I stroke my fingers over her bare skin and delight in the shiver that it elicits. I have no idea what I'm doing, but whatever it is, it seems to be enough. She shrugs out of the sleeves of her suit and wraps those delightfully strong arms around me, every inch of skin between us set ablaze by contact. We both moan the pleasure into the air and I can't stop myself, I wrap my legs around her waist and grind my hips just a little. Suddenly she is frantic and breaks our kiss to yank the shoes off of our feet, thens he is at mu mouth again and hesitantly stroking her fingers up the insides of my thighs. I get impatient, and though I don't know what to do or what to expect, I grab one of her hands and grind it into my groin, and even over the remains of my clothes it feels... amazing. Her hesitance and apprehension is gone, and she grabs my suit at the waist and yanks down, almost shredding what I have left but managing to get it off without destroying it._

_She continues to kiss me, but now she moves slowly along my jaw and down my neck to my collarbone, where she nibbles and licks while slowly shucking her suit as well. Then she lays her body over mine, and the only clothing we are still wearing is our bras. I can feel her stomach ripple as she slides up between my legs, and it drives me wild. I tangle my fingers into her hair and tug her up to drown her in kisses and desire and need, and she gets the message. Her hand slips between us and finds my nub, rubbing and swirling with the wetness of my passion making it slick. She rubs and she teases, but she won't give me what I want. I want her to claim me, to take me in every way she can, to mark me and make me hers, and she isn't doing it. I pull back just enough to see her eyes, and I do what I would never have done with anyone before her. I beg her to take me._

_She purrs and her husky voice makes me need it more, and when I hear that all she was waiting for was me to ask, I growl playfully and say that I've asked so why isn't she doing it? She kisses me tenderly and teases her fingers at my center, and then whispers that this might hurt a little at first so she'll be gentle. Then she slips two into my body and I cry out because she's right. I can feel a tearing just inside and it's all I can do to blink back the pain, to cling to her and not beg her to stop when I need this so much. She waits there, whispering apologies and promises that it gets better, that it won't hurt again, and when she finally moves her hand again, she's right. This time, Jo's fingers only deliver pleasure that I've never felt before, and my body rocks with wanting more. I don't have a clue how to do this myself, but somewhere in my mind I decide that it's not fair to her to only take, so I slip my hand between us as well and tentatively touch her clit. When she bucks and moans onto my skin, I move my fingers in a slow circle and she moans again. Her motions have faltered, and though I want that ecstasy again I'm pleased that I broke her concentration. Then I hear her murmur, "Inside. Now."_

_I obey, unsure of how to give her pleasure like she's been giving me. When I slide two fingers into her though, she is so tight and warm that I get lost in that sensation and my fingers seem to move on their own. She groans and takes my lips feverishly, her ministrations on me resuming and driving me to greater heights. As her fingers dip into me, mine slide out of her, and when I plunge back in she teases me to the edge of losing her pressure within my body. We find a rhythm and a pace, and I can feel a wet heat building inside me, filling me up and leaving no room for anything but pleasure. I feel it run out of room to grow, and suddenly there is a pressure deep in my core that I can't stop, and when it becomes too great I tumble over the edge of a precipice I didn't know I was standing on and plunge into a sea of contentment. At that moment, a cry I've never voiced before climbs out of my throat, and I can hear her exclamation of release as well, her walls tightening around my fingers as waves of joy rock my body and grip her touch deep within me._

_I don't know how long we lay there like that, but some time during the night we fell asleep curled around each other. Hours later, Finnick knocks on the outside of the hut and calls through that we need to get up, it's our turn for watch. We get dressed in silence, but we are both glowing. When we step outside, Johanna still zipping her jumpsuit, Finnick winks at us before standing and retreating into the shelter._

Since then, we've sat here on the beach, her head in my lap and our weapons within easy reach, just enjoying the night. We haven't actually said a word, but what is there to say? We have now truly claimed each other. I turn and look at Beetee, who is asleep but no longer bleeding, and wonder what that cylinder he carries is for. "Jojo, you awake?" I ask softly. When she nods and looks at me, I speak again. "What's that cylinder for?" All she can say is, "I don't know."

* * *

_~J~_

I can't believe that I almost lost Katniss to the Gamemakers. We had just moved to the Cornucopia to figure out the set up of the arena when everything went to hell. One minute, Volts, Kat, and I are kneeling on the ground correlating what we know about the sections, then the next thing we know Nuts goes quiet. Katniss moves as fast as I've learned she can, her arrow sticking out both sides of Gloss' pretty face by the time I see what's happening, then there's no time to think and I just throw, one of the axes she gave to me burying itself in Cashmere's chest. Brutus and Enobaria try to take on Finnick and have exactly as much luck as I would expect them to. Brutus manages not to die, but the trident rips the muscle in one shoulder and renders that arm useless, and Enobaria can only knife Finnick in the leg before she has to duck behind the Cornucopia to avoid an arrow in her throat.

Katniss and I start to chase after them when the ground beneath our feet shifts and the island begins to spin. It's all I can do to drop to the ground and bury an axe so that I have something to cling to, then I'm reaching for Katniss and she grips my wrist. Even then, we both know she's slipping. Just before I lose her, the ground stops and we go limp, panting and shocked at how quickly three tributes died. Then we remember that there really aren't that many of us left, that it's just us four and Brutus and Enobaria. It's only been two days.

Now we lie on the beach again, restocked with weapons and prepared for whatever comes next. I haven't let go of Katniss' hand since we got here, and I don't know that I'll be able to before we execute Beetee's plan. Maybe not even then.

* * *

_~K~_

Beetee runs through the plan one more time, even as he unspools the wire and leaves it laying on the ground before even starting to attach it to the tree. "Katniss, you and Finnick are going to take the spool and lay out the wire. Now remember what I said about this last night, once that wave hits, the beach is going to be completely soaked, so once you have the wire in the water get the hell off the sand. Johanna, you stay here with me as a guard." He holds up his hand to forestall the protest he knows she's about to make. "Don't argue with me. I know you want to go with her, I know you want to keep her safe, but I need you here as a guard. As good as Finnick is with that trident, we've already seen that against Brutus and Enobaria he has difficulty. You're quick, you have more than one weapon, and you're a harder target to hit." He turns back to me and continues, "Stay in the trees after you set the wire, they should give you enough cover that you can disappear if you need to. Go over one section then head back up the rise, we'll meet you there okay?"

Then he gets to work, weaving the wire around the tree with Finnick's help. Jo and I stand side by side, her hand in mine as we watch the men set an intricate pattern over the trunk. I don't know whether it actually serves a purpose that way, but it's certain to raise some questions with those watching the Games at home so that's something I suppose. We hear the wave go crashing through the trees and we know it's almost time, so I turn to her and give her another kiss, one that I hope puts the others to shame. I try to say that I'll stay alive, that I'll come back to her, that we're almost out. We know that Beetee has another goal, that he has a reason for leaving so many yards of wire on the ground instead of on the tree, so I try to convey my faith that this is it. This is the moment when we four win the Games and escape.

She returns my kiss with all the passion she can. When we pull apart, I can see that she has tears in her eyes. As I wipe them away, she mouths, "I love you." I smile and mouth it back, knowing that if we succeed, I'll be able to say it to her every day for the rest of our lives. Then Finnick is tapping on my shoulder and I have to start running. I have so much respect for the half of our pack that remains, and their faith in each other means so much. I turn to him as I hoist my bow and say with a grin, "I'm ready. Let's go, Triton." Johanna and Finnick both laugh at my new nickname for him, and then we're off.

He and I move silently now, no laughter or banter. It's a straight run down to the beach, so I don't expect his leg to bother him at all and it doesn't. We run without stopping, and sometime in there he tosses me the spool and I start to lay out the line for a while. I even let myself believe that we may actually succeed when the wire goes taught. Suddenly it's not bouncing anymore, and Finnick and I both look at each other with worry on our faces. The next moment, the wire springs lose and starts to coil at my feet, and I know that someone cut it.

I don't get time to react to anything before the butt of his trident smashes into my temple. I crumple to the ground, stunned and paralyzed as Finnick scrambles over my inert body. I feel a stab in my right arm, his finger digging around for a moment, then his bloody hand on my throat as he leans close and whispers, "I'm sorry. You have to be the Mockingjay." Then he is gone, and I am left with this deep feeling of betrayal. How could Finnick do this to me, how could he give me time with Johanna only to kill me when she isn't there to see? It's when I hear the crashing that I understand at least part of what's happening. I see Brutus pause as he looks at me, but I look dead or dying and he turns to follow Enobaria as she springs past. They run in the direction Finnick disappeared, and a moment later I manage to gain some coordination back. I can barely walk, but I can move well enough to start moving back up hill.

I try to go back the way we came, retracing our steps to reach the tree. I feel a panic that I know is rooted in the fear that the District Twos got to Johanna and Beetee and killed them, but I shove it down. I walk until I can run, then I run until my lung burn and my chest feels like it's about to burst. I see a flash just up ahead and I'm afraid I'm already too late, but a few meters more and I see Beetee on the ground, twitching and alive. Johanna is nowhere to be seen. A few feet away from him is a knife wrapped in wire, and I finally understand. Volts wants to use the lightning to destroy the forcefield, thereby giving us a way out of here. I frantically grab the weapon and start to unwind it, laying an arrow out on the ground as I do so. When the knife drops to the ground, I wind as much of the wire around the arrow's shaft as I need to and set it to my string.

Just then, I hear someone moving through the undergrowth and I grab the knife, preparing to throw it. Johanna stumbles to a halt, axe in hand, and I relax. Her eyes go wide when she sees my bleeding arm, but I shake my head and motion for her to stay there. Then I pick up my bow again. There isn't much time left, and I have to get Beetee's wire through the field before the lightning strikes. I draw as far back as I can, take a breath, and let go...

Then my world explodes. The lightning strikes as the arrow leaves my bow and I can watch the current race down the line as the forcefield swallows my arrow through the chink in the armor. When the energy of the lightning reaches the point my arrow went through, there is a massive overload and I am blasted backwards. Nothing works anymore, I can't move and I can feel my heart struggling to stay alive. A hover appears overhead, and I fear we have failed.

...I hear movement...

...I can see dark shapes all around me...

...I feel the bed beneath me...

...I smell antiseptic...

With a gasp, I sit upright and take in my surroundings. I am plugged in to all kinds of machines, and the beeping is already giving me a headache. There are IV needles in my arms, and the sight of them making my veins move threatens to make my throw up though I have nothing in my stomach. I close my eyes and start to rip things off. I can't take it, I won't be plugged in, then I realize what it means, what it must mean. We failed. We blew the forcefield, but the Capitol picked us up, and now they are fixing us up so that they can execute us publicly.

I won't let that happen, I can't let that happen. Not to Johanna. I don't know what to do, but I have to do something, so I scramble for the door and fight with it until it lets me into the hallway beyond. I don't know where to go, so I decide to go right and I start to walk, looking for a door that might lead to another medical bay. I don't find one, so I go through the first door I come to. Or at least, I intend to, until I hear voices on the other side. I recognize Plutarch Heavensbee(_so I was right, the Capitol does have us._), but the other voice sounds like...

I slam the door open, and sure enough, there is Haymitch with Heavensbee. Before I can move, Heavensbee holds up his watch just like he did on my Victory Tour and I see the mockingjay again. And now I understand, he's on our side. It doesn't make me hate him any less, but it tells me why my mentor is standing here with him. Instead of attacking one or both of them, I just run to Haymitch and wrap my arms around him. He got me out, and that's all I can think of right now. I stay like that for several minutes, smelling the alcohol on his breath and his clothes, before I notice another scent. I can smell pine trees.

Haymitch has never smelled like that before, so I look up to ask him why he does now and my gaze is captured by burning hazel eyes looking over his shoulder. Without a thought, I shove him aside and wrap Johanna in as tight an embrace as I can manage and start to sob. I cry tears of joy because we got out, I cry tears of betrayal because Finnick knew and I did not, I cry tears of sadness because so many of us died just to get Jo and I out, and I cry tears of relief because I don't have to try and make myself kill her to save her from the Capitol. My knees give out before long, and we end up cuddled on the floor against a wall with her murmuring to me and kissing my face and my hair, assuring me that we're safe and that everything will be fine.

00000000

**A/N:** And now I can talk about the real difficulty of writing this chapter. The Games are so damn long, they're an entire section in Catching Fire. I realize that The Hunger Games pretty much WAS the Games, at least after about halfway through part two, but still. You know what I mean. Also like I mentioned up top, I had to do a lot of rewriting because of Peeta's death. Partly because of that, I kinda missed the section with the jabberjays. I'm actually a little sad about that, since I love that section and I feel like it's truly powerful. On the other hand, me missing it really isn't a bad thing because there are a couple one shots you can find here on this site that pretty much cover what I would have wanted to have happen.

I changed who went with her for two reasons there at the end. One, Finnick isn't in love with her, so he'd have an easier time doing what needed to be done. That actually played a huge role in the choice to do it, because she still needed to be hurt and the team still needed to be split up. The other reason is because now this lets me do something so much more tragic to the one left behind. That second reason is actually two-fold. Finnick being the one left behind sets up a good tragedy, and Johanna being the one to make it out with Katniss lets me change the course of events. Not, you know, hugely change them, but change them enough to make this story mine. It also give me more time to work with them being together, which I like. I think that Katniss and Johanna are so adorable together.

Catching Fire is done. Next chapter, Mockingjay begins!


	6. Echoes

I walk along what used to be the cobbled path leading to the square of District Twelve. All around me, there is nothing but dust and ash, swirling in the wind that blows out of the north. I've done my crying for the home I once had, I have no more tears to shed. I pause for a moment and look behind me, taking strength from the fact that Johanna, my Johanna Mason, is standing on the doorstep of the house I used to occupy in the Victor's Village, her eyes locked on me. Even from here, I can see the sadness in her gaze as she watches me. I know that my shoulders are slumped, I know that I look broken and defeated, and if I'm honest, that's exactly how I feel. Here I stand, in the ruins of the home I left twice, with nothing but charred reminders of the lives that were lost because of my defiance.

When I came here today from District Thirteen, I thought seeing the blackened remnants of homes and shops would be the worst thing for me to endure. I hadn't counted on seeing the still, putrefying corpses of people I had known littering the ground. Even then, there were more horrible things for me find in the drifts of gray ash. I had stepped out of the clear area of the Village and gone only a dozen steps when I kicked what I thought was a rock. I looked down to place where it came from, only to see that it wasn't a rock. What I had kicked out of the ash was a skull, one that looked like it had belonged to a child. I had shrieked and stumbled back, prompting Johanna to take a running dive out of the invisible hover over my head to come to my rescue.

I think she expected to take that dive at some point, since she had a line attached to her with a harness. I heard the pilot of the hover shouting at us both, but she ignored him and I was in no condition to do anything about it. She just scoffed and detached her umbilical, letting it retract into the sky and vanish as she held me and calmed my shaking. When I could stand straight and walk again, I kissed her once and asked her to let me make the trek alone. She almost argued, until she saw into my eyes and recognized the need that drove me. Now though, I wish I'd let her join me. I took one more breath, closed my eyes for a moment, and trudged on. I reach the square and I can see things left behind after the bombings. The stalls of the vendors, broken and black, ribs of some ancient beast reaching out the ash. The bones of those unlucky enough to be caught by the flames and the napalm, contorted in agonized postures. The stones of houses that tumbled down, almost buried in the gray snow. In the center of the plaza, the melted remnants of the whipping post where Gale's back was turned to hamburger, where Ripper was left to rot for several days just because she sold black market liquor.

I look to the right, up the lane leading towards the Mayor's house, and I know just then that I do not have the strength to do this on my own. I hear Gale's voice crackle over the headset, asking if I need him to come give me support, and I can't stop the laughter that comes from my mouth. The sound is without mirth, a chuckle that is almost black on my tongue, because where Peeta was oblivious at first and then understanding, Gale has refused to acknowledge what Johanna and I share since I made it to Thirteen. I shake my head and say no, I do not need him, and I can hear the anger and the jealousy in his voice when he says to just let him know if he can help me. He doesn't say that I let Johanna come so why not him, he doesn't mention his conviction that two women should not be together, but I can hear it in his tone. I know him well enough from hearing his rants for years to remember that in his mind, sapphic relationships are a luxury of the Capitol and are more for bragging rights than true affection. I hate those rants now more than ever.

Back when we were younger, Gale would watch the brightly painted and odd Capitol residents parade about on screen during the Tribute's Parade or the shows with Caesar, and he would complain about their opulence. I never said anything, I refused to abuse them the way he did, but I didn't stop him either. When he would see two women, or gods forbid two men, kiss and show their feelings, he would yell about how they were pushing their money and influence in the face of the districts. Then this year, he saw Johanna and I together. He saw the show with Caesar, and though we didn't do anything overt, he still saw the looks on our faces. When he watched the games, he saw whatever the cameras saw. He watched Peeta die, and he told me that while he was sorry that the baker's son was gone, he felt that whatever competition he had was gone. He told me that he would let me grieve, that he would wait until I felt I was ready to move on with my life. He never acknowledged that Johanna and I are in love. He looks at her like a bug, and he is quickly burning through whatever good feelings I have for him. If this keeps up, I think that I will soon hate him.

I remove the headset from my ear and call out to my lover. I beckon her with my words, and I reach out for her with empty arms, needing her to fill this space and give me the strength and support to finish this tour of my personal hell. She is there after twenty beats of my heavy heart, her arms circling my waist and holding me together when I so desperately want to fall apart. I feel her plant a soft kiss on the top of my head. Her hand slips into mine, her long fingers giving a quick squeeze of support, and I walk to the south a little ways to all that remains of my old house. The ash that has settled over everything is even here, covering my home in the only dirt it will ever recieve, a shallow grave courtesy of the Capitol. I fall into the litany that Johanna and I used at first, right after we escaped the arena together. _'My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. I was in the Hunger Games. I made it out, only to be forced to participate again. I am in love with Johanna Mason. Johanna Mason is in love with me. Peeta is dead, and Finnick was captured. It is believed that he is dead. He probably is dead. It is probably best if he is dead... I am going to kill President Snow.'_ This is the only way we can center ourselves in the present, and it reminds us every day of the way the world has changed.

A year ago, I was a star-crossed lover from District Twelve. A year ago, I thought that was all I'd ever be. I wanted to move on with my life, to forget the Games, though I knew I never would. I wanted to be who I had been before, who I never could be again. A year ago, I didn't realize how greatly my life would change in the course of just a few days. Then I was visited by President Snow, his stink of blood and roses infecting my house, and told of the uprising that was starting. I was told to stop it, to convince the districts that my actions were the result of being a loved-crazed sixteen year old. I failed, but I suppose in a way that was a good thing. The Quell arrived, and my world was shaken from the course it had followed and forced into a new direction, one that I would not abandon for anything. The cost of accepting it was great, the deaths of so many is a heavy burden to bear, but I have Johanna now, and her strength is greater than I ever could have dreamed. Now I am twice a victor of the games, I live in District Thirteen, and my home is nothing more than dust and ash.

I lean on my beloved for a moment, then drag her with me up the lane to see what happened to the richer part of the district. Intellectually I know that nothing survived there either, but I have to see it, I must count the cost of our defiance. I must know how many deaths I should place at Snow's feet, how many people I'll be laying to rest when I finally end his life. First we stop at the husk of the bakery, the place that was Peeta's. I tell her this softly, a heaviness in my stomach but no tears and a sullen quality to my voice. Nothing is there, at least nothing other than the misshapen and half-melted lump of metal that was their oven. Gale told me that none of the Mellark family made it out, that none of them joined the people he managed to save. One day perhaps, I'll make a marker and place it here, just so that anyone who comes to this place will remember them, will remember the sacrifice that Peeta made for me.

With heavy steps, we continue on. Our footsteps don't make a sound as we move through the hush and the dust, and I mark all the places I recognize. The dress-maker, the washing house, the metal shop, all of it. We walk past the long gone space that once held the Hob, our district's black market, an old coal warehouse that was burned down before I even left for my second Games. Then we're at the place I was most afraid to journey: the house of the mayor. This house held many memories for me, some happy and some sad. I remember coming here often after my return a year ago, always walking through that door to spend time with one of the only friends I had, a pretty girl with sandy hair named Madge. She was the one that gave me the pin that has become a symbol of rebellion, the gold mockingjay pin that I wore in the arena and at victor's functions afterwards. The pin I still wear today. She was one of the only people I had contact with after my return, and that was only because we never had anything to do other than spend hours together learning to be sociable. I know she is gone now, Gale was actually sad to tell me that her father believed they would be spared and so forbade her to run. I wish she had run anyway.

When I can take no more of this horrible place, the barren wasteland that my home has become, I turn and fold myself into Johanna's arms. I slip my headset back onto my ear and tell the pilot and Gale that we are ready to leave, and a ladder materializes out of the air just above us. I am so numb that I don't notice the current that freezes us both to it as we are reeled in, I only notice Gale's strong hands grab me and pull me in. I also notice that he offers no such help to Johanna, and that earns him a cold look from both of us but he shrugs and takes the seat next to me. He's put me on the end, so that is the only spot available and Johanna will have to sit on the other side of him. I hit him, as hard as I can, and when he asks me why I tell him in no uncertain terms that he is being an ass and a bigot. He doesn't move.

The flight back to District Thirteen takes about forty-five minutes, and I spend that time reflecting on what I saw. I stroke the worn leather of the hunting jacket I had grabbed from my house in the Victor's Village, the last reminder I have that I actually had a father. I also took my hunting bag, along with a photo of my mother on her wedding day, but I couldn't find my sister's ugly cat anywhere. I have to accept that he's either dead, which is likely, or he slipped into the forest and is managing to hunt and stay alive. For Prim's sake, I hope that's the truth. When the hover sets down, I unbuckle my restraints and reach out to Johanna, slapping Gale's hand away when he tries to take mine. The look on his face is sour, and he stomps away to who knows where while Jo smiles and slips her fingers through mine. A peace that I only feel with her settles over me, and I smile on of my rare smiles just for her. I walk through halls and empty corridors, scratching at the place on my arm where my supposed schedule is printed as we try to find where my mother and sister are staying.

When we were in the hospital recovering from the arena, we weren't expected to be imprinted. We were recovering from the first battle of the war, they said, and that was good enough reason for them. As we healed though, they started to take away our morphling and force us to start acclimating to life underground. We get imprinted now, though we still reside in the infirmary wing, and we are supposed to follow the itinerary though we rarely do. Sometimes at night, Johanna will stick her morphling drip into my arm, and she tells me that I need it more than she does because I took more of the blast. I never tell her that she's right. Finally, we find compartment 307 and knock softly, waiting until my mother calls for us to come in. She and Prim are at home for _18:00 - Reflection_, a half hour of rest and relaxation before dinner, so I walk in with Johanna waiting in the hall as I pull out the photo for my mother.

She's accepting of what Johanna and I share, and Prim tells me that it's cute and she likes that we're honest about it, which makes both of them better than Gale. I already knew that I suppose, but it still stings that my supposed best friend is so pig-headed about who I fell in love with. My mother cradles the photo and weeps, and Prim's face falls when I tell her that I couldn't find any signs of Buttercup, but they both smile at me and give me hugs. I look behind me to see that Jo is still in the hall and I sigh exasperatedly, grabbing her hand and dragging her inside. She is greeted kindly by my mother and Prim jumps on her back as soon as she sits down beside me, wrapping her arms around her and knocking her defenses down. We spend the time we have before dinner with my family, and by the time we are on our way to _18:30 - Dinner_, Johanna is starting to believe me again when I tell her that she's a welcome addition to our number, and not just welcome to me.

We are almost to the dining hall when Gale stops us, his face unreadable, and says, "We're wanted in Command. They didn't say anything about _it_, so I guess it can come with us." I've had it with him today, and every other day, and I won't take it anymore. I grab him by the collar and pull him down to my level before I floor him with a hard right cross. "You will _not_ speak about Johanna that way! You owe her my very existence, and you owe her more than that. The things she has done for me are more than you could ever hope to equal, and I love her for them. You, on the other hand, I am _very_ quickly beginning to hate. Your bigotry is trying my patience, which you know I never had much of, and your constant disparaging of the strongest woman I have ever met ends now or I will beat you bloody and leave you in the infirmary with a shattered jaw." With that, I grab her by the neck and haul her in for a very fierce and very exhibitionist kiss, unintentionally causing both of us to experience a sharp rise in our libido, then step over him and storm towards Command.

Once we've left him behind and still picking himself up off the floor, she grins and takes a breath to stop the quaver in her voice when she purrs, "My warrior woman... Tell me again how I'm amazing and incredible, Girl on Fire." I chuckle throatily, my anger still seething in my gut but feeling the calming that only she can give me. "You, Johanna Mason, are the most wonderful woman I have ever met. You are strong, and you are fierce, and when my father died you were the person I tried so very hard to become. I wanted your strength and your confidence, and I never once dreamed that six years later, I'd have both, along with the rest of you." She bounces forward happily, bumping me with her shoulder as we enter the door to the darkened command center to find everyone else already gathered. We don't want to be there, but Plutarch sees us and waves us in, his eternal mask of cheer faltering only a little when Gale enters behind us, still trying to set his broken nose.

Johanna and I decide with a silent look to disappear as soon as we can, thinking that whatever we are here to see is just another bit of propaganda to strike fear into the districts. We are almost pleasantly surprised to see Caesar Flickerman, today done up in glittering silver, laughing on the screen. Then the camera pulls back to reveal that his guest is none other than Finnick Odair, and we both gasp, the same sound that comes from being submerged in water and unable to breathe until it's physically painful. We shove everyone out of our way, both of us trying to reach through the screen to him, searching his face and his posture for any sign of mistreatment. Somehow, he is blessedly unharmed, though he looks upset and tired. Caesar settles himself before speaking, almost hesitantly, "So... Finnick... Welcome back."

The Capitol darling grins ruefully and runs one hand through that sandy golden hair, a soft tone in his voice when he answers, "I bet you thought you'd done your last interview with me Caesar." Our shimmering friend laughs and responds, "I confess I did. I confess I did at that. The night before the Quarter Quell... well, who ever thought we'd see you again?" Finnick looks at the camera, almost like he knows we're watching, and says with steel in his voice, "It wasn't part of my plan, that's for sure." Caesar pauses for a moment, his face showing a little regret before he continues sedately, "Yes. I think we could all see what your intentions were, trying to protect Katniss. You wanted her to win, yes? It looked like that was what you tried to achieve with your last act."

Finnick looks at him and nods, his feature inscrutable. Caesar takes that as an acknowledgement and says, "Why don't you tell us about your last night in the arena." Finnick grins that rueful grin again and replies, "Well first, I think you need to understand what it was like in there. Imagine that your world has shrunk down to a giant fishbowl, where the air is almost as thick as water and everything around you is steaming and hot. The trees are so dense that you can only see about twenty feet in any direction, and sound doesn't carry right, so you're never really able to relax. In there, you have to live like you have enemies surrounding you at all times, even if there is only one person there who would gut you given the chance. Living like that... that's what the Games reduces you to, an animal that runs on instinct alone."

Caesar looks a little green, but he soldiers on. It's my guess that no one has ever explained the life of a tribute to him before. "What about the others with you, those you believed to be your friends?" Finnick sits forward, elbows on his knees and his hands clasped before him. "Well Caesar, we were all banded together and just trying to survive. We all wanted Katniss to escape, to be the one that lived for us. We felt that she would be the only one that would be able to pull the trigger and release us. She didn't know us at all really, so she could be the one to end us and live on, carrying whatever we had left with her. She, just like every tribute in there, knew what it was like to live on the outside once you've won, and she is the most incredible victor I've ever seen. When that forcefield went down... I could only hope that she was still alive, that she'd be the one to live through whatever happened next."

"So what were your thoughts when you heard about the escape?" Caesar asks. Finnick thinks for a moment, then is so quiet that the cameras have difficulty catching his words. "I thought that the world was changing, and I didn't know where I fit anymore." When asked if he thought I knew what was happening, he shook his head violently. "Not at all. If she knew about the rebellion, it was only as an abstract notion. You saw what she was like when Peeta died, did that look like a woman who had a plan to rebel? She was trying desperately to keep him alive, and I know for a fact that she thought he was the best of us all. Maybe he was, I don't know. She wanted him to live though, and when he was gone... She could hardly live moment to moment. She clung to what she had left, the only friends she'd made. She fought to keep us alive, and I don't think any thought ever entered her head other than how to survive. I don't even think she thought about what she'd have to do if things went the way the Games always do."

Caesar looks like he's in pain, remembering the girl who tried so hard to be brave for the cameras, the girl who volunteered for her sister. He truly looks like he doesn't want to say what Johanna and I know he will, but he does it anyway. "Well... I hope you're right, but she did fire that arrow. She looked like she knew what she was doing when she grabbed that coil of wire." Finnick is mute, but he shakes his head. He knows that by then, I had figured out what I was supposed to do. He knows that I did what I had to, what he needed me to do, but he doesn't say that. When he speaks after long moments, he shows a conviction that must seem superhuman. "She would never have done anything for the rebellion knowingly. I saw what she did, how she looked there at the end. I think she believed Beetee was dead, that I soon would be, and that Johanna had the best chance to kill whoever was left. She smiled as she shot that arrow, believing that whatever happened would end her suffering. It's not her fault that she was wrong."

Johanna and I hear what he's saying, the words under everything that he cannot say. _'She did what was necessary. She got herself out alive, and she did it because we gave her the strength. She will fight you all, she will fight to end what you have created, and those of you that stand in her way can expect an arrow to the heart or an axe in your throat. Fight on, Girl on Fire. Be the Mockingjay that we all need you to be, and live for those of us who have fallen.'_ Caesar doesn't hear that, and we are grateful. He smiles at Finnick, who leans back and sighs. "I'm tired, Caesar. Do you have any more questions before I ask to be escorted back to my guest quarters?" His host nods and queries, "Do you have anything you would say to Katniss now, if you could?" Finnick sighs again and looks at the camera, "Don't let anyone control you, Girl on Fire.(_Stay strong._) Fight to live your life the way you want to, sweetheart, don't let anyone else make you do anything.(_Fight against Snow, make him pay for forcing us all into the arena again._) Above all, do not let anyone tell you that you cannot live the life you have earned, the life you deserve.(_Live with Johanna and be happy. Marry that woman goddammit, you've both earned happiness._) Don't let us down, and don't forget us.(_Goodbye, you beauties. Run you clever girls, and remember._)"

We are both in tears when the screen shows the Capitol emblem again, and we cannot help but feel pain for our beloved friend. He looks healthy, but in the Capitol's loving care, that could deteriorate so quickly. We want to get him out, we need to, but we don't know how right now. The words he spoke will cost him dearly if Snow figures out what he was really saying... Then the command center breaks into chaos. We hear everyone crying about what a traitor Finnick is, calling him scum for turning his back on us, saying that he has no honor, and I curl into a ball on the floor under the weight of their accusations. Johanna however does exactly what she always does and turns on them. "Shut your fat mouths! You bastards don't know what you're saying, what you're accusing _my friend_ of! Finnick went up there tonight to give us as much of an edge on time as he could, and by doing that he gave us a fucking chance of pulling off the revolution you half-wits want my girl to lead! If you can't get your heads out of your asses, you're going to make the sacrifice he made, along with the sacrifices of every friend I had left, null and fucking void! _Fuck you!_"

She lifts me up off the floor and bulls through the crowd, carrying me like a child as I cry into her shoulder. As we move through the door, I hear the voice of the white haired woman everyone calls President Coin bark at us, "Soldiers Everdeen and Mason, you have not been dismissed." Johanna doesn't even turn, she just screams back, "Kiss my ass, bitch!" I know that we're probably going to have some sort of reprimand for that, but it doesn't matter anymore. I focus on her heartbeat as she carries me, swallowing my sobs and forcing down my tears until I can breathe around the knot in my heart. I murmur for her to put me down, to let me walk with her, and as soon as my feet hit the floor I drag her to our compartment. I know that my mother and sister aren't back yet, so I don't worry about upsetting them with how broken I look. I open our door and pull Johanna inside with me, locking it as soon as it clicks shut so that Gale can't follow us like he probably would.

With no one else around now, I fall onto the bed and tug her down with me. We lay there like that, her legs sprawled over mine, for a small eternity until she sits up and starts to untie her boots. When I groan, she kicks them off and grins at me, helping me shuck mine as well. I don't realize what that will mean until my second boot hits the floor and her fingertips dig into the undersides of my feet. She only tickles me for a few seconds, but it's enough to break my funk and reignite my flame. I pull her down on top of me again, a private grin that is for only her beginning to spread across my face as I fall into her eyes.


	7. Demands

Hours have passed since the interview aired from the Capitol, and though we don't know if it was live, it gives us hope that Finnick is healthy. That he's alright, that we could maybe manage to get him back if we had the right plan. I feel my cheeks turn red as I reminisce over the how enthusiastically we... celebrated that hope. I am still amazed that this strong and beautiful woman, this amazon, the Fury that is Johanna Mason, could possibly fall in love with me. It isn't that I don't appreciate the things I've accomplished, but I see her as so much more, so much greater than me that what we have shouldn't even be possible. And yet I know for a fact that she thinks the same about me. She confessed it just before she went to sleep... Oh how sweet she looks as she sleeps. Innocent and peaceful, at least when she isn't screaming from nightmares.

My thoughts turn to brooding, and more specifically to the nightmares that we share now. We had our own from the years we were in the arena, but now we share nightmares from the Quell. Or at least, we both have nightmares from the Quell, and some of them line up. I remember how, that second day of the Games, I heard Prim screaming in the woods. I ran deep into the trees, desperately trying to find her, to save her from whatever they were doing to her, except she wasn't there. Instead, I found jabberjays swooping over my head, the sounds of Gale, Prim, and my mother screaming down at me as if they were in pain. Finnick had tried to follow me, to chase me down and stop me from disappearing, but he wasn't fast enough. I wish to the gods that he had been, or that he'd been faster than Johanna at least, because she is the one that made it into the trees before whatever force the Gamemakers exerted kept everyone out. I heard her scream my name, I heard her chasing after me, but I lost her in the swirl. And then, things took a turn for the worse for both of us. I heard her voice, and though I knew it was coming from one of the birds because the damn thing swooped right in front of me, the agonized screams were the final straw and I ran blindly through the woods screaming for Johanna. When we found each other, I could hear that the birds had begun tormenting her with the only person she had left at that point: me. We just curled up on the floor of the jungle and cried, holding hands until the hour was up.

Now we sometimes will both wake screaming, and other times one of us will wake the other with our screams. In fact, that's a large part of why we were roomed together, no one else wanted to be in the same room with one of the "sirens of the wood" when we had night terrors. I heard someone call us that the other day, and I was amused. I still haven't told Johanna about it though. I figure she'd either hate it or she'd try and paint it on our clothes or something. Perhaps she'd even demand that we get it tattooed permanently somewhere, and because I can't tell her no even when I probably should, we'd do it and then never be able to lose the name. Gods, how I love her... And gods I need sleep, my thoughts are so disjointed that I can't focus on anything and I'm going from happy to depressing to happy and sappy again. At the heart of it all, I can see just how much I need her at my side, how much I've come to rely on her strength to bolster mine, how I use her scent to bring me back from the edge, how I use her touch to either lift me up or bring me back to earth. I see also just how much she needs me. She will never show weakness around anyone else, hence her being the one to carry me from Command today, but when we're alone I watch her mask fall away and she's just as scared and wounded as I am, she needs to hear my voice to make everything okay again. When one of us wakes from our nightmares, we turn to the other without a thought and just hold them, feeling their presence shore up the walls and make the world turn properly again.

I look to my left and sigh when I see the time. It's only four thirty, which means that I managed about three hours of sleep before waking up again. I know that with my mind running so fast, I'm condemned to a wakeful night. Which sucks. A lot. I need to rest, but I can't seem to. I sigh again, upset and wishing that I could sleep next to Johanna until the wake-up call, and roll out of the bed. I move silently across the floor to my dresser, trying to keep from waking her. She looks so... angelic, something that doesn't happen unless sleep has its hands on her. I slide the drawer open, finding my government-issued clothes inside, along with the locket that Peeta had worn into the arena in an attempt to have something to convince me to escape and my mockingjay pin. I pull out the undergarments that Johanna and I managed to 'procure' from some secret stores hidden in the underground district and slip them on. I've got my head buried in the gray shirt that everyone wears when I hear her stir and mumble, "You're awake? Where ya going?" I fight my way into the constricting cloth and look at her, my right hand searching blindly for the pants I had been issued as I answer her. "I'm going to Command. I need to tell them... I, uh... I need to tell them that I'm going to be the Mockingjay for them."

She smiles sleepily and rolls out of bed with me, stark as she was the night I met her, and my eyes snap to her body without a thought. I hungrily devour the sight of her, even knowing that most people would see the scars that trace her flesh as blemishes. Johanna and I though? We love the scars that we have, we treasure the stories of how they happened, because they are what make us who we are. She shuffles over to her dresser and starts to get dressed, calming me with a silent promise to stand beside me. I do as I usually do and pin my mockingjay to her breast, putting Peeta's pendant around my neck with the same mockingjay facing out. We always match, as much as we can anyway. We smile in the dark, gentle touches and breathy giggles as we bump hips in an ever escalating shove war even as we try to tie on our boots.

We slip out of our room, hand in hand, speaking in hushed voices as I try and figure out how to do what I am about to do. "I want to do this... I need to. This is how I can get justice for us, for all of us. It's just... Finnick. I'm afraid that when this is all over, they're going to execute him as a traitor." I feel Johanna's hand squeeze mine and she murmurs, "Katniss, baby... I don't think you realize how important your decision is to their revolution. If you want to keep Finnick safe from them, I'm sure you can." I ponder her words, hope kindling in my breast as I think about how I might be able to save our only surviving friend. Beetee is a genius, and his contribution was indispensable for our escape, but he's not really a friend to either of us. Finnick though? He kept me alive in the arena, and he kept Johanna sane in the years after her victory. He's all she has left other than me, and since he did so much for us in the Games, I have come to care about him too. My brow furrowed in thought, I whisper back to her, "Do you really think that I can save him? That I can protect him by asking it?"

She chuckles at me and responds with a hint of her old snark, "Of course you can, brainless. They will do just about anything for you if it means you'll be their symbol." The smile I give her is as warm as I can manage, at least until I remember all the lies Haymitch would tell Peeta and I to get us to do what he wanted. That thought makes me realize that they might say anything to me, but a promise made behind closed doors with no proof or documentation could easily be reneged on. Even if they wrote it down, those documents could easily be made to vanish should it prove to be to their benefit. Johanna sees my scowl and squeezes my hand, silently telling me that she has faith in me. As I ponder the situation, I lean into her and use her presence to shore up my resolve. Then it comes to me. "I'll ask that they say it publicly when the announcement is made. That they promise that Finnick will be safe when we save him, that he'll be granted a full pardon for whatever things they think he's said that undermines them or whatever. It's not foolproof, but it's something." She bumps my shoulder and smiles at me with a satisfied smirk, and I know that I've pleased her and made her happy just by being smart about it.

Another few minutes brings us to the door of the Command center, and my nerves return in full force. I'm shaking and I'm seriously considering bolting until later in the day until my lumberjack spins me about. Her lips crash into mine, the hungry dance of her lips igniting desire in me as well as succeeding in firing me up and making me feel like I can do anything. She doesn't give me a chance to breathe once she stops kissing me, just turns me again and opens the door to usher me in. My head is spinning and I'm woozy, but I'm grinning and standing straight. I look up and see that Coin, Plutarch, and all their people are all there, awake at a time when no one in their right mind should be. However, I suppose it shouldn't surprise me since they are trying to fight a war against the Capitol and their sympathizers. My thoughts are running a mile a minute, and I have a few more thoughts about things to ask for in the space of a few heartbeats. I want to be allowed to hunt with Johanna at my side, I want to have training as a proper soldier, again with Johanna at my side, and most importantly, I want to be the one to kill Snow.

I get the ball rolling with a simple statement as every head turns to us. "I'll be your Mockingjay." Everyone looks rather surprised, since I've been ducking their pressure and questions ever since I got here, but that look is nothing compared to what I say next. "I just have a few conditions." Plutarch sputters indignantly, but Coin... she looks at me with a sudden respect. She thought of me as a tool, but by saying that I had something I wanted in exchange for my name and my image to help them fight their war, I've shown that I have a bit of cunning despite my lover's nickname for me. Her voice is cool as she shushes Heavensbee and demands, "Name your terms." I take a breath and feel Johanna's arms slip around my waist, the pressure of her body molded to mine steadying the racing of my heart, though it doesn't slow it at all. I smile disarmingly, yet the expression seems to set Plutarch on edge even more. It must be because I'm not known for my smiles, but instead for my accuracy with a bow and my cold focus on what I want. My guess is that at this moment, he's afraid of what I'll ask of them.

"My conditions are simple," I say quietly, my smile never faltering. "First, I want the announcement to be public so that everyone will know and everyone will hear the things you agree to." Coin doesn't even blink, she just barks an affirmative. "Second, I want a guarantee that Finnick will be pardoned." I hold up a hand to silence any protests as I explain, "He hasn't said anything to betray us, any of us. You heard the words he said in his interview, but you didn't hear what Johanna and I heard. We know him well enough to hear the message behind the words." Coin stares at me for several long minutes and I'm afraid that she'll say no, that she'll deny my first condition and I'll lose the man that is all Johanna had before me, then she nods yes. I breathe a silent sigh of relief, then continue, "Third, I want to be able to hunt, and I want Johanna to be allowed to come with me." I see movement in the back corner and realize that Gale is in the room. He is staring at me, his eyes burning and angry as he looks at the two of us together, and for several long minutes I think about how betrayed he must feel. I'm shaken back to the moment at hand when Coin tells me yes again. She holds up her hand to stop me and adds a set of qualifications.

"Give them two hours a day, deducted from their training time. They get a quarter-mile radius, with tracker anklets and com units, and whatever they get goes to the kitchens for dinner." I chew my lip as I realize what that means for my next demand. If our hunting time is deducted from our training time, that means that we'll have to chose between escaping from the compound for two hours and training for the war. I speak slowly, thinking carefully about that as I continue, "We also want to be trained for combat. If I'm going to be your Mockingjay, I want to actually be useful for you in ways that are more than just propaganda, and I want Johanna with me. I need her with me." Coin smiles at that, and the expression makes me think of Snow because of how predatory it is. She doesn't even hesitate this time, she says yes and seems to be seizing on the opportunity to sink her hooks into me. It unnerves me, so I shrink into Johanna further and wish that I could be behind her instead of how it is. However, I know I need to seem strong, so I stay where I am. "Last condition... I want to be the one to kill Snow." I know my eyes show my hatred and revulsion for him, because the simple thought of him makes me wish my hands were around his throat for what he's already done to me.

Coin's expression cools, but she's still smiling. She's back to the quiet respect that she had at the beginning, and that makes me feel more at ease though I've realized how little I like her. I don't feel like I can trust her to do anything, like she's every bit as bad at Snow. "Tell you what, Soldier Everdeen. When we've got him, I'll flip you for the honor." I smile at that, and I can feel my lover's lips turn up in a grin against my neck, and I hold out my hand. President Coin grabs hold and gives a shake, both of us solidifying our respect for the other in that moment. She whispers so that only Johanna and I can hear, "You've got it. We'll hold up our side of the bargain, but you better perform." I try to be as predatory as I've seen her be when I smile and reply, "I'll perform, don't you worry. I made my choice already." She nods and releases her grip, turning to Plutarch and his assistant, a woman by the name for Fulvia, and barks, "Call a national security brief during reflection today. We'll make the announcement then. Until then Plutarch, I leave her in your capable hands. Let's get our girls to work immediately."

We both blink, surprised at how... completely Coin seems to understand the way things stand with us, the understanding she has for why my demands included Johanna. Then she is gone and Fulvia descends on us. Plutarch makes some grumpy remark about not having coffee, but we ignore him as we are ushered out of the room through a door in the back. We see a darkened studio, and as we step in the lights start to flicker on. On the desk in front of us, there is a sketchbook open to a page with the distinctive swoop of handwriting that is so familiar to me. I see myself standing tall and proud on the page with armor that conforms to me and looks to be made of panels almost like overlapping feathers. At first glance, it is totally utilitarian and minimalist, but at second glance it is a work of art. Everything speaks of the bird my name is derived from, the symbol of the rebellion that I stand for now. I can't help stroking the page as I breathe, "Cinna..." I want to tear up, to cry for him, to grieve for the man who is even in death providing for me, but I can't. I have to stay strong, to hold on and truly stand for the cause.

Plutarch smiles softly, turning to the last page and showing me something. Johanna gasps and lets her mouth hang open as we read, _'I'm still betting on you, Girl on Fire.'_ I try for several minutes to speak, and finally manage to choke out, "When did he...?" Plutarch chuckles and thinks about it. "Well let's see... After the announcement of the Quell, but a few weeks before the Games I suppose. But, we don't only have sketches. We have your uniforms as well. Oh, and Beetee's got a surprise for you waiting down in the armory. I won't spoil it by hinting." I think of what I've been shown already and I realize that Cinna wanted me to make this decision, even before I knew there was a decision to be made. Plutarch and Fulvia have turned away and are speaking excitedly about something, though I have no idea what it is until I tune in after a few moments. "Our plan is to air an Airtime Assault. To make a series of what we call propos - short from propaganda spots - featuring you and broadcast them to the entire population of Panem."

Johanna looks at him with confusion on her face, "How? I thought the Capitol had sole control of the broadcasts." He actually chuckles at that and calls back, "Yes, but we have Beetee. About ten years ago, he essentially redesigned the wireless network that the broadcasts go out on. He thinks there's a reasonable chance we can do it. Of course, we'll need something to air, so that's where you come in. With that in mind, Fulvia?" The woman at his side begins to talk, and suddenly it's like we're back in the Capitol.

* * *

Johanna and I trudge back into our quarters after a long day of training. We were both outwardly disappointed when we were told that because of the state my old prep team was in from incarceration, my duties as Mockingjay were suspended until tomorrow. In actuality, we were both quite happy because that meant we could start on our regimen early, and I wouldn't have to be followed by cameras and trying to do something scripted until tomorrow. We had practically raced down to the training course, for the first time eager to get back into conditioning. We hadn't counted on the hell we were going to be put through, so when we were subjected to stress tests on the course, we were unprepared. For several hours, we didn't get a chance to breathe or rest. They kept us running, climbing over walls, and basically throwing every last obstacle and challenge they had at us. Now we feel like our limbs are going to fall off, and we can barely walk. Still, we're elated and running on a high from the day, feeling like we're finally accepted into things.

Johanna leans heavily against me, her fingers toying with my shirt as she kisses my neck. I grin and lean back, humming softly as she struggles to tug the offending cloth off. When she succeeds, I turn and wrap my arms around her, trying to remove her shirt as well for several minutes and finally succeeding myself. We giggle and tiredly pull off our pants, nearly falling over and stumbling to the bathroom in our room. I turn on the water so it can warm up, then turn to Johanna and pull her into my arms. I kiss her as passionately as I can with as tired as we are, my fingers unhooking her bra at the same time she manages to remove mine. We're too exhausted to get our panties off, so we just shuffle under the steaming stream and relax into each others arms, still smiling from our triumph. Today was a good day. We saved Finnick.


	8. The Sirens

I run my fingers through what is left of Johanna's hair, the soft and gorgeous locks that reached the middle of her back now nothing more than tresses of hair about three inches long, and that's at the top of her head where she still _has_ hair. The revelation that we were going to be remade to "Beauty Base Zero" prompted her to have a bit of a fit and chop most of it off last night, which in turn made me fall into a fit of giggles. I don't really giggle, so she couldn't help but grin when I started to and then couldn't stop. The heat that rose through my body when she whispered in my ear, "I live to entertain you, brainless," oh I can't even describe how it made me feel. Powerful, weak-kneed, beautiful, awkward, clumsy, self-assured, it all just ran together and molded into something else in my chest, something that I'm still not used to feeling. Oh the things that Johanna, my Jojo, can do to me with but a few simple words... And she knows it. She knows that she has this power over me, and she does her best to hide the fact that I can do it to her too. I know though. I know I can, I know that if I say the right things in the right way, I can make my valkyrie of a girlfriend just melt into putty in my hands.

She purrs at the way my fingers feel on her head and pushes back into me, even that tiny movement sloshing the warm water around us and threatening to spill it over onto the floor. I sigh contentedly and nuzzle into the side of her neck, the finally silky remains of my own hair tickling her skin. We both lost a fair amount, but at least I still have hair down to my shoulders. It's something, and Fulvia is sure she can work with it. Are we excited to be made into Mockingjay-plus-lover? No, not really, but it's a way to serve, to help further this rebellion and bring down Snow. That's our goal, and that's what we're striving for. To that end, we're taking a bath so that we can be the prettiest public faces of the rebellion that we can be, though we are both also eager to get to work on training to be soldiers in the eventual assault on the Capitol. We both agreed last night while we were taking our shower that we would train as much as we can for this, that we would only trade our drill slot for hunting twice a week. The rest of the time we're here? We're either going to be filming propos(oh dear god am I not looking forward to that), or we're be running, crawling, brawling, and shooting our way to being better than the Peacekeepers.

After another twenty minutes in the water, we sigh as one and start to shift so we can get out. She turns to me and kisses me just like she always does, a fierce and possessive attack on my lips that lights a fire just under my ribs and makes me believe that if I tried hard enough, I could fly. The cascade of water that washes off of her as she stands draws my eyes along her willowy and steely body, her scars just as wondrous as the last hundred times I've seen them. The angry red line that traces from halfway along the left side of her neck to somewhere around the middle of her sternum, just barely missing the small mound of her breast. The three parallel gashes just over the ripple of her abs, a remnant of some wood beast before the Quell. Several sets of claw marks along her arms from the berserker monkey things in the arena, dotting her skin in a rather alluring pattern. A shiny crescent just under her right knee from not quite making it out from under a branch she had cleaved from the tree it grew on. A dozen other marks, with a dozen other stories, all of them her perfect imperfections. All of them the things that make her the woman I claim as my own.

I'm just managing to stand up myself when my prep team bustles in without knocking. Octavia sees us both on our feet and glistening, still steaming water running down our naked flesh in entrancing prismatic droplets, and squeaks in shock. She looks so very different from the last time we met, her once plump frame now a little loose, too much weight lost too quickly. Her natural auburn hair makes the green of her skin look almost healthy, though darker than I am used to. Flavius shooes her in, his once bouncy orange curls now a crisp black and flat on his head. He keeps her moving, trying to make it so that Venia can get in and work her magic, always the most collected of the three of them. She snatches a towel from Octavia and quietly scolds her, "Katniss is not going to hurt us, dear. She didn't even know we were here. Things will be better now." Then she is in front of us, efficiently wrapping a soft towel around Johanna with a faint smile on her face that lights up her striking gold tattoos as she glances at me. I can see a kind of approval in her eyes, though I think it is less about who I chose to be with for the rest of my life and more that I made a choice at all. Once she has covered us both for the sake of a modesty that only the Capitol can afford, she bustles us back into the quarters we were finally issued after I announced I'd be the Mockingjay, a block directly opposite of the one that my mother and sister share.

Johanna and I look at each other, knowing and dreading what is about to occur. For the next hour, we are subjected to a full body wax, several moisturizing treatments, a grand total of three rinses in the tub, and finally dressed in our gray uniform and made up with natural looks. Though we knew this was coming, it is still every bit as much of a living hell as every other time we were remade, which doesn't make it any better. They do the best that they can to smooth out our blemishes so that they can burn, cut, and otherwise maim us in a more attractive way, but they hit a rather nasty snag late in the game that satisfies our mutual need to be uncooperative. The cut that Finnick made when he dug out my tracker, as well as the butcher job Johanna did on her own arm, healed in a way such that we both have rough scars that cover a large expanse of the inside of our forearms. By this point, Fulvia has entered the fray and is determinedly consulting with Plutarch about what is to be done since the uniform Cinna made for me ends just above the elbow, as do the uniforms of the District Thirteen soldiers. In the end, they admit defeat and decide that they will simply use armbands or bandages to hide what they don't want to show.

As a group, we traipse down to the dining hall, Plutarch and Fulvia doing their best to keep the prep team moving and assured. Because there isn't much we can do to help, Johanna and I are out in front and walking hand in hand. I can't help feeling a fulfillment of a higher purpose, like I've done something that I was always meant to do though had no notion it needed done. With our steps synced up, I lean my head on her shoulder and enjoy the bouncing sway of our movements, my thoughts divided between how much I love this woman and the job that we are about to undertake. I don't hear what the Capitolites are saying, but I do see what happens when we walk into the room. At first, there is a hush from the citizens there, made more pointed and poignant by the glare of open revulsion and hatred coming from Gale and a few others that he has managed to convert to his way of thinking. Then the murmurs begin, whispered words of disbelief and awe that we agreed to be the face of the revolution, exclamations of how beautiful one or both of us is(how they hadn't noticed that Johanna is a knock out, I don't know), and reverent greetings given to us. The anger from Team Gale(as we decided to call them right around then) grew more noticable, and as one they stood and dumped their trays, stalking out as a pack. The prep team is treated kindly now in light of their association with the Mockingjay, and the meal goes as smoothly as possible. A few children even crowd around them and ask questions about their cosmetic enhancements, prompting them to feel at least a bit included, small smiles lighting their faces.

Lunch comes to an end and we split up, Johanna and I going down to Special Defense to get my armor and our weapons for the propo, the Capitolites going to one of the various different empty bays to set up the stage and the cameras. As my lumberjack and I step into the elevator, a voice calls out from behind us to hold the door. I almost refuse just because I recognize the voice, but I decide to give him one last chance and turn to hold the door for Gale. The anger isn't gone from his face, but I can tell that he is at least trying to play nice. I can also see in the set of his features that he is still convinced that this is just a phase, and he isn't sorry for the things he's said or the way he's done his best to alienate Johanna. I glare at him, holding one arm to the side to keep Johanna back though to be fair, I'm not sure she'll get to him before I do. We ride in silence for several minutes before he finally says, "You're still angry." I bite out my reply in clipped syllables, "And you're still not sorry, are you?" The look he gives me makes my blood boil with how... clinical it is. "I stand by what I said. Do you want me to lie about it?" Again, I spit my reply into his face, "No, I want you to rethink it and come up with the right opinion."

At that, he turns to me and grabs my arms in his large hands. I wave Johanna off with a tiny movement of my hand, sure that he's not going to hurt me and also sure that I'm about to hurt him for what he hasn't said. His gray eyes stare into mine for several long moments, and when he speaks, it's a soft tone I haven't heard in a long time. "Katniss, I know you, the real you. This isn't you. You're hurting, I understand that, and I can forgive you for this, all of it. I just know that you don't do this, you aren't some sick sappho, so when you finally come to your senses, I'll be waiting for you. Just don't take too long, okay? I may not like it, but it has feelings too, and if you crush them, it's going to be very upset. We watched its games, you know what it can do." He takes a breath to continue what I'm sure he thinks is a rousing speech of patience and long-suffering heroism, but I've heard enough. He is never going to change, so I fulfill my last promise to him. My knee snaps up into his groin, strong legs crossing his eyes with the impact before I smash my forehead into the bridge of his broken nose. The breath he just took wheezes out as he curls up and slowly sinks to the floor, and my left hand finds a grip on his shirt. I start to punch him, again and again and again, the skin of my knuckles tearing and bleeding more freely with each strike even as bruises blossom on his chiseled face. I hear the first crack of breaking bone and the arch under his eye collapses. I hear two more seconds later, and in a spurt of blood he spits out a tooth from a jaw that doesn't seem stable anymore. Johanna's hands wrap around my wrist, tugging me away from him and upsetting my balance so that I have to let go of him or fall over. Without me to hold him up, he tumbles to the ground like a loose sack of potatoes.

She coos into my hair, striving to calm me down even as she glares down at the unconscious form of the man who was once my best friend, tears of anger and hurt leaking from her clear sunny amber eyes. She feels betrayed she tells me, betrayed because she has done nothing but treat him with respect while he has done nothing but snub her and talk to her like she isn't even a person. She has tried to be kind, to be understanding in the hopes that he would do the same, but he never has and now it is too late for him to change. I beat him like I told him I would if he spoke to her or about her that way again, and even as she calms me I spit out one last epithet. "You can lay there and bleed, Gale. I told you what would happen if you spoke about the woman I love the way you just did, and you must not have believed me. Believe me now, you stupid cocksucker?" I know I shouldn't do it, but I do anyway. I'm just so angry, so upset with Gale Hawthorne, that I can't keep myself from branding him with one of the few things I know will hurt his pride just as much as the beating he just took. I see the hurt in his eyes as he writhes on the floor, the disbelief that I would goad him with an intimation that he has engaged in the same acts he hates so much.

The doors open and I storm out, dragging my lumberjack with me as I go. Special Defense is down almost as far as the dungeons we found my prep team in, a veritable beehive of activity and computers. We ask for Beetee, our tormented genius, and we are directed through the maze until we reach a plate glass window. On the other side is the first beautiful thing we've seen here in our exile, a replica of a sunny open meadow filled with golden flowers and a lone tree. A door slides open soundlessly, almost seeming to melt into existence in the center of the clear wall, and we are ushered through. Once inside, I can see that there is life all around, tiny little birds with breasts so red they seem to be bleeding as they flit too and fro, forwards and backwards and side to side, hovering in front of the flowers. We find Beetee in a wheelchair, a smile on his face as the imitation sunlight hits his upturned face. He doesn't open his eyes, but he does hold up his hand to motion us to silence. We stand with him, relaxing bit by bit the longer we are in this sanctuary. When he speaks, his voice is soft and sounds hardly used. "Aren't they magnificent? Thirteen has been studying their aerodynamics for years. Forward and backward flight, and speeds up to sixty miles per hour! If only I could build you wings like these, Katniss!"

I chuckle and reach out to touch his shoulder, my voice almost as soft as his own, "I don't think I could manage them, Volts. Thanks for the thought though. Plutarch said you have something for me?" He chuckles and presses his hand to a control panel on the chair, making it move for him. He explains that he actually can walk again, though he tires easily and quickly, so the chair is just simpler. We chat for a few minutes, Johanna and I telling him how we're adapting to life here and all three of us sharing a dark laugh when we see two soldiers struggling to carry Gale out of the elevator still. Then he looks up at us, apprehension on his face as he asks about Finnick. The mood sours quite a bit, but we tell him the same thing we told everyone else, that we heard the real message under what he was saying. Beetee assures us that he heard it too, and he's going to back us up when we say that Finnick, our Triton, is still on our side and fighting any way he can. Beetee even says he's working on a new trident for him. We look up at that and see block lettering overhead reading SPECIAL WEAPONRY, four guards around the door. Inside, they check the schedules on our arms, scan our retinal signatures, take our fingerprints, our DNA, do voice recognition, and run us through metal detectors. When we finally check out, they let us through and we see why security is so tight.

The walls are filled with just about every weapon imaginable, rifles, explosives, launchers, even motorcycles with mounted guns and sleek lines. Johanna and I look at each other, wondering how a simple bow and arrow can fit in amongst all of these high tech monstrosities, then we are shown a rack of simpler weapons. There are several bows of various different designs, including one with so many scopes and gadgets that I'm fairly certain I couldn't even use it if I wanted to. They also have vests lined with knives, belts with loops for thrown weapons, and melee weapons that are surprisingly intimidating in their simple designs. He encourages us to play with them while he goes and picks up a couple things, so she and I take hold of several knives each and start throwing them at the targets. We don't even try, but we end up hitting the same bullseyes side by side, bright grins on our faces. We glory in the simple joy of being so in tune that we can throw in tandem and not miss or interfere with each other. After several minutes, Beetee returns, two sleek cases laid across his lap. The first one he thrusts at me, the other at Johanna. "You first," he says with a grin, pointing at me.

I lay the case down and undo the latches, the top sliding open on silent hinges to reveal what's inside. On the red velvet interior lies a sleek black bow, nearly five feet long and beautiful. The etching and design work seem to suggest the wings of a bird, stretching forth and seeking the heavens. When I touch it, voicing a soft cry of pleasure, I feel something just under my palm that I have to make sure I'm not imagining. For several seconds, I sit there with the bow in my hands, a faint hum running up my arms, and just look at him in wonder. "What's it doing?" He smiles at me and tells me that it's saying hello, that it recognizes my voice. He tells me about what he did, how he made the bow special because he felt it would be a waste to make it solely based on looks. He tells me that the arrows are the real weapons, but without the bow to react to they are only arrows. He points me to a range and bids me to test them, and I can't help but be amazed as the arrows light dummies on fire or blow them to pieces. Beetee turns to Johanna with a satisfied look on his face and says, "Now you."

She opens her own case, the hinges silent as mine. Her eyes grow wide and she pulls out two axes, a matched pair that at first looks like it was made to look like leaves, but upon closer inspection matches my bow. Feathers. She laughs in delight, gasping when they come alive in her hands. I read the joy on her face and nod her towards the dummies, curious about what her axes will do and wanting to see the warrior woman I fell in love with. She pauses for a moment, then springs forward unable to contain her enthusiasm anymore. My Johanna becomes a whirling dervish of metal and sinew, pieces of the dummies flying off and falling to the floor smoking. When there are no more targets left for her, she stops and stares at me, a manic grin on her face and a light on her face that ignites a heat low in my body. I can see the edges of her axes are glowing, and I can hear the hum from here as she strides toward me. She drops them to the ground and grabs my face in her hands, demanding that I kiss her with everything that I am, and I oblige. The moment stretches on until we don't know if it is seconds, days, or decades, and when we break apart we can see that Beetee is blushing slightly and looking away with a smile on his face. Clearing his throat, he points behind us at the far wall, and we see that there is one last surprise: two suits of Mockingjay armor, one a bit taller than the other and shaped... for Johanna. Cinna has done it again, given me his approval and his love with a gift.

We are in a trance as we walk to the suits, stroking them for a moment before stripping down to our underclothes only and quickly slipping into the armor he made for us. Johanna slides her axes into the sheathes on her back, and I place a quiver of regular arrows on my back along with my new bow. We finish our prep and thank Beetee one more time, then head off to find our team again to get finished. After we find our way out, the trek back to the soundstage is easy and straightforward, and we can sit with relative ease as they put the last touches on us, including bloody bandages that cover the extraction scars on our arms. They coach us as they work, and when they finally finish, we look at each other and stare. Johanna looks haunting, and I can see by the look on her face that she thinks the same of me. We step into view of the cameras, and when we see the images on the screen, we are confronted with two women who look like they just stepped out of an active war zone. They are larger than life and look as though the fires at their feet have no more effect on them than the wind in their hair. We look like the women we are supposed to be, the Sirens of the Wood. In that moment, we are Furies, and we are as beautiful and terrible as dancing flames.

* * *

**A/N:** So! Here they are, our beloved Mockingjays. I had this idea while I was on vacation this week, so I had to write it. I also felt that I needed to give Jojo something special, like the bow that Katniss was given. So yay, here we are. All done with this chapter. ^_^


	9. First Strike

I stand with my bow held in the air, trying to hold what I think is an inspiring pose, or even a fierce one, but something is off. At the exact moment that I think it can't get any worse, the intercom crackles to life and pours waves of derisive laughter over me, laughter I know well from two years listening to it whenever I didn't do something right. I lower my arm and stare up at the window hiding the control center, my mouth hanging open as I contemplate what could have possessed him to ignore and avoid me until now, only to be in the booth during the filming of my first promo. The waves of hysteria subside enough for Haymitch to say, "And that's why you never try and script anything for her. Katniss is terrible at being in front of a camera when she has lines." I hear Plutarch begin to argue with him, saying that it's just jitters, that I just need to practice it, and Haymitch replying that I can practice for days and not get better. The words fade into a buzz in my ears until I don't know who is talking, but it doesn't matter anymore when the bitterness and anger burst out of me and I scream, "Shut up! Just shut up! Who the hell are you to say that I never get better, Haymitch? Maybe I don't, but I at least try to be there when people need me! I'm doing this because this is what I can do to help, and what have you been doing huh? Sitting in your room in the dark drinking your pain away?"

The silence is heavy and thick enough that I can hear the rushing of my blood in my ears, my panting breaths echoing back to me as I become the center of focus. Johanna's face is startled, Fulvia is almost cowering, the camera crew seems to be zooming on my face to capture my anger, and I can hear both Haymitch and Plutarch stuttering and stammering from the booth. After several minutes of nothing happening, I turn and bury my head in Johanna's shoulder with a huff, wishing that I could do something real, not sit in this studio and give lines that sound stilted even when done with a Capitol accent. Almost as if he read my mind, I hear Haymitch pick up his thoughts and express them, "How about instead of doing this here, we send her out there where the real rebellion is? Not only will you get better footage to work with, but you'll actually get her interacting with the people she's trying to inspire. The effect that could have, you can't ignore it. The possibilities are almost endless." Plutarch and Fulvia both start to try and list all the reasons that won't work, and I can feel Johanna and I nodding in unison as Haymitch shoots them down one by one.

As angry as I am with him, it's nice to hear him doing what he's always done and supporting me. It feels almost like he hadn't abandoned me as soon as we got here, like he is still trying to be the father I'd lost. I tune him out eventually, focusing on the woman in whose arms I stand, on how solid she is, the smell of pines that lives on her skin. The way her steely frame can support me, the gentle caress of her kiss on the crown of my head. I focus on Johanna, until all the world fades away and the only things that are real are the ground we stand on and the space where our bodies meet. I trust that she will be here for me for however long we have, that the only person to ever breach the walls of my heart will always be careful with what they hold. I also trust that she'll pay attention to what is happening around us, because I certainly am not. I don't want to, at least not yet, because it's all just pissing me off, and I can't be a good symbol if I'm just angry. All too soon, she's shaking my shoulder and telling me to pay attention again because something important is happening.

I look up, and the first thing I notice is that the camera crew has changed. The director(I guess that's what you'd call her, though the point of doing this with me is not directing at all) is a tall, sharp-featured woman with blue flower tattoos covering her head like china, and the men with cameras are a pair of red haired twins. Johanna and I grin and look at each other, mouthing 'gingers' and then collapse into paroxysms of giggles. The second thing I notice is that Haymitch has left the glass cube of safety to come and see the Mockingjay in person, and the look on his face as he realizes that there are actually two of us is confused and a little appreciative. It seems that even with his approval of my relationship with Johanna, he hadn't realized that Cinna knew enough or had enough time to make Johanna a suit of armor too. The last thing I notice is that Plutarch looks annoyed, and it takes me a moment to figure out why.

"Katniss, are you even listening to me?" No, actually I wasn't listening at all. "We have been convinced by your mentor that the only way to get you to be convincing is to take you out to the people in the other districts." Johanna makes a sound behind me that echoes what I feel when I hear that, a joy that gives me the urge to bounce on the balls of my feet. "Now, since you just started combat training yesterday, we're not going to one of the combat-heavy districts. However, we think we have a solution. District Eight isn't seeing much fighting, though there have been a few bombings there. They have turned several warehouses into field hospitals which are providing as much shelter and care as the district can afford to those that have been hurt. It isn't much, but it's something, and showing you talking to the wounded would be very useful to us. We're flying out immediately, so gather whatever you need and meet the soldiers that are providing security for us in the hangar. You have ten minutes, Mockingjay." He finishes his little speech with a faint smile that makes me think of the things that happened to us in the arena. I hate that smile, and I hate the things that run through my mind twice as much. Still, he is telling me that I get to be free of the ever-present tunnels and electric lighting of Thirteen, so I force myself to smile as I grab my lover's hand and drag her away.

We run through the halls, the electricity running from the grip we share conveying our excitement for what is about to occur. The few people we encounter on our mad dash jump out of the way, and we don't slow down until we are standing at the checkpoints to Special Weaponry. In truth, we are only here to get the proper quiver of arrows for my bow since Johanna hasn't put her axes down yet. We rush through the security measures, Plutarch calling down to make it easier for us, and then we're running again, this time with a full quiver on my back. I have to skid to a halt at the door to the hangar though. The way is blocked by a man that seems to be made out of muscle and more muscle, a side of pure beef that someone stuck a military uniform on. We both recognize Boggs from around the district, but more importantly we recognize him as one of the people that Johanna almost knocked over when she was carrying me away from Command the night of the interview. "Uh... hi big guy. Want to... I don't know, move out of the way? Or something?" The look in my eyes is nervous, I can feel it, but I can't help it. Something about the way he's just standing there bothers me, intimidates me more than any of the tributes I had to face. Something about him make him more of a threat than Cato, and that is no small feat. For several moments he says nothing, then, "On this excursion today, I am your commanding officer. I know you have started your training, so I also know you have a concept of what that means. You are to do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it. Do you understand?" I nod, but it doesn't satisfy him. "I said do you understand me, Mockingjays?" We both squeak an affirmative, then do a double-take when we realize that he called us both Mockingjay.

He leads the way into the hangar, the gigantic open room housing what seems like an entire fleet of hovers though it may be as few as twenty. I do recognize the specific hover we are walking towards though, the markings on the hull matching the markings from the hover that took me to what is left of District Twelve. It would seem that this is going to be my designated vehicle, officially or not, so I stroke the metal of the entryway as I step inside as a greeting. Johanna does the same, and that tells me that she recognizes it too. The camera crew introduces themselves once we're all seated and the engines are spinning up, giving us something to focus on. The woman who is directing the cameras is named Cressida. She's from District Three, though she came to Thirteen several years ago in preparation for the revolution that she believed was coming. It makes me wonder what would have happened if the revolution never happened, but I don't dwell on that thought for very long. The camera men are Castor and Pollux, though Castor does the talking. Something about the way Pollux stands, the way his face rests, the way his lips move over his mouth though he never opens them, makes me think of something. I don't know what it is, but something seems to be wrong or out of place. That's a puzzle for another time though.

Johanna and I make the ride hand in hand, grounding each other through the flight and the thoughts of what we are about to do. Though Plutarch tells us that there won't be fighting, that we are only here to smile at people, be seen shaking hands and soothing minds, we hope that there will be something to do, some way to strike a blow against the Capitol. The ride takes about two hours, and the whole way we have to listen to him natter on about what has been happening in the districts. Eight had an uprising, I remember that from during my Victory Tour almost a year ago, but the Peacekeepers put it down brutally. Since then there have been bombings periodically to keep the population downtrodden, though they always avoid the textiles factories as much as they can. The message is very clear: "Just because we are punishing you for your insolence does not mean you do not have to continue to work for us." Districts Four and Seven have both been subject to unrest, but they have been keeping themselves busy after what happened to Eight, almost like they are waiting for the Capitol to focus elsewhere. District Eleven has been a warzone, with the farmers and the orchard keepers actually establishing a system of guerrilla tactics using the mockingjays as signals for times and locations of strikes. Though Peacekeeper aggression has gone through the roof in the district, all that has changed is that the rebels are becoming more daring and more capable of avoiding sweeps. They have to be.

The ringing message that we hear through all of the news is that the country is ready for change. The levy is breaking, and a single well-placed movement could bring the whole thing crashing down. Johanna and I? That's our job, to be the rallying point for the masses to push back and topple the corrupt oligarchy that rules us. We are to be the godslayers, the ones that defy the wrath of the 'almighty' President Snow and live to tell the tale, again and again and again, until the grip that he has kept on Panem breaks and we slip through his fingers. That message is hard to hold onto once we land. The doors open, and the first thing I see when I step out of the hover is a smoking ruin of what used to be a row of houses. To my right, I can see a few buildings that are mostly untouched except for the shattered glass that sprayed outwards, but to the left, only craters and husks. I am reminded of District Twelve, and though I know the destruction here is not so bad, it is still enough to ratchet my hatred of Snow up a few more notches. My hands have unconsciously grasped my bow and one of the normal arrows, the black fletching glimmering in the sun. Some part of me senses Johanna walking just behind me, and I know that she'll have one axe in hand while the other hand rests on the rifle that Boggs gave her, just in case. We drift along the road, the crew in their insect-like shells with the red lights the only indication that they are filming. After a few minutes, Boggs points at a building just ahead.

I see what obviously used to be a warehouse, except now there is a freshly painted red cross on the side of the building and over the bay doors at the end closest to us. This must be the hospital I came here to visit, but suddenly I feel like I shouldn't be here. This isn't what I do, I'm not a caregiver and I don't do well with injured or sick people. I mean, I can handle a few injuries now and then, but these are bombing victims, burn victims, and people injured by collapses. What am I supposed to do here? I try to stop moving, but Boggs just grabs my arm and drags me with him, smirking as he walks. "Come on Mockingjay, don't lock up now. I'd hate to learn that you weren't worth shit after all the trouble we went through to get you out of the arena." I glare at him and shake him off, but he succeeded in getting me to buck up. I march ahead with him, only acknowledging the rebel leader of the district in passing as I head inside. I wish I'd taken the time to prepare myself once I enter though.

The heat of the sun on the metal roof has turned the entire building into an oven, and the only segregation is a long curtain that hangs down the center of the warehouse. On one side, all the burn victims and all the patients that still have their limbs. On the other side, everyone that lost an arm, a leg, had something fall on them and perforate an organ, basically all of the people that we have no hope of actually saving. I can smell sweat, blood, and refuse, the stink of human suffering and squallor turning my stomach but not really the biggest problem. What is worse is that I can smell the infection on the air, the stink of rotting gut and festering wounds, a perfume almost as diseased as the things that create it. In this heat, there is nothing anyone can do to slow the spread of infection, and that thought alone threatens to take my feet from under me. I force myself to soldier on though, to do the job I came here to do for these people. I know that though I can't fix them, I can at least give a few of them hope, and me doing this should help the rebels fight on in other districts if Plutarch is correct.

I begin to wander through the rows of people, Johanna just behind me, and it isn't long until someone recognizes me. A boy who looks to be about twelve or thirteen opens the eye he has left as I pass, and I see the flicker of recognition. "You... You're Katniss aren't you? Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire?" I smile at him and nod, reaching out to touch his bandaged head as his face lights up. A girl who must be his sister gasps and turns to call out hoarsely, "It's Katniss! She's here, Katniss is here!" Soon, the entire hospital is alive with the sound of my name, and I am moving slowly through the wounded with a sad smile on my face as I try to greet and comfort as many as I can. Johanna is recognized as well, and though she is feared a bit, she is here with me, and there are some who saw us in the Quell and put the pieces together. I hear a few people tell her to take care of me, a few others tell her that she's lucky, or that I'm lucky to have her, and still others thank her for saving me in the arena. All the while, Castor and Pollux follow us quietly, filming the way we interact with the inhabitants of the hospital. I am so overwhelmed by the gratitude I receive, as well as the way the atmosphere changed from one of suffering to one of hope, that I almost miss the quiet whine of hovers coming closer. Boggs hears it too and pales, then beckons to us and runs out the nearest door. Johanna and I smile at the people around us, saying we need to follow our commander, and we run out.

We exit the building just in time to see a flight of hovers drop their cloak. I can see the symbol of the Capitol on their wings, but I still don't understand until the first shockwaves slam into me. Then Johanna and I are sprinting down the street away from the dropping bombs, fighting to raise the hoods on our suits to protect our faces from flying rubble. The planes are too fast, the bombs too many, and we dive behind the nearest dumpster to huddle together. Minutes pass, and all is quiet. Boggs comes over the radios we stuck in our ears as we left Thirteen, telling us to run for the extraction point. Moments later, we hear him swear as another wave of bombing begins, and I make an impulse choice. I run from my hiding place with Johanna following me and leap up away from the ground, grabbing onto a ladder to climb onto the roofs. I feel the ladder shake when Johanna does the same, and we scramble up top to see that we got lucky and found a machine gun nest to dive into. Boggs calls over the radio to see where we are, and though I have to shout back to be heard, I tell him that we're on the rooftops trying to get our bearings. Then I see Cressida and Pollux crouching low and running to catch up with us, a determined look in their eyes.

I don't have time to think anymore, the next flight of planes has just dropped their cloak. I grab an arrow from the right section of my quiver, the yellow fletching indicating that it's an incendiary weapon, and fire after only a moment of aiming. It strikes the wing of a plane and ignites the engine, causing a cheer from the soldiers with my lumberjack and I, her burst fire cracking the glass on the cockpit of another, and the machine gun shattering it a moment later. Both planes tumble out of the sky, and the men around me are cheering for me, saying how remarkable of a shot it was. I lean over to mutter in Johanna's ear, "I missed, I was aiming at the lead plane." She only chuckles and winks at me, then we have to focus again. By the sound of the engines, these planes are the only ones left in the area, so we should be safe soon. Still, my anger at the Capitol and at Snow ensures that I don't want to let them leave without doing some damage. What I see when I look up is both lucky and unlucky: they are heading right for us. I draw and fire an arrow with red fletching, another one on the string and ready to fly when the first one hits. Two planes spiral out of the air when their wings are torn apart by explosive charges, and a third goes down in a cloud of smoke when the machine gun beside me tears through its belly.

When the sound of the planes fades away, we all relax and stand to survey the damage. The planes that we brought down litter the roofs and the streets, but at first it doesn't seem so bad. When we turn, the hospital is in flames and there is an ominous creaking just before the center of the roof falls inwards and buries everyone inside. I know that my scream is loud, and I know that I did everything I could to save them, but I still know I failed. I didn't come here to fix things, but I still should have protected them better, fought harder, done something to spare the lives of the people in that building. I don't know what I could have done, or if I could have done more, but I feel that there must have been something. Johanna coos softly and pets me until I stand, a wooden expression on my face, and scramble to the streets below. Boggs is waiting for me, and at first I think he's about to yell at me for disobeying orders or something, but instead he just puts a hand on my shoulder and says, "Good work Soldier Everdeen. I'm sorry."

I walk to the smoking remains of the hospital I was in barely even five minutes ago, thinking of the boy who saw me, the sister that called out and started the rise of hope. I think of the smiles, the effortless joy that spread through the masses like wildfire, the knowledge that they would be alright because the Girl on Fire was here, and that sense of purpose curdles in my heart. The happiness I felt in that moment sours and distorts until I feel rage at what has happened, until the faces of those now dead become the words I must say to whoever is listening. I turn to face the street I just walked, knowing that Cressida and her cameras would be there. "My name is Katniss Everdeen. I have been called many things, but there is only one name that matters now, one purpose that I serve. This building behind me, the smoking ruin that you see, was a hospital. Sure, it used to be a warehouse, but after the Capitol started to bomb them, the citizens of District Eight turned it and others like it into hospitals to house those left injured by the attacks! Now it is rubble, because today the Capitol decided that murdering women and children that could not run away was a good idea. Well, I have a message for them. I have a message for President Snow." I point at the nearest fallen plane, the Capitol symbol standing out on the wing for the camera to see. "You've gone too far. We will fight, and we will not stop. You see that, Mr. President? Look closer! Fire is catching, and if we burn, you _will_ burn with us!" I storm right up to the camera as I spit out my last line, almost shaking with my rage.

* * *

I lean against my lumberjack as we sprawl across one of the chairs in Command, watching the first Airtime Assault as it happens live. President Snow is doing one of his bi-weekly propaganda speeches, and Beetee is having a blast messing with it, racing ahead of the technicians to use every single weak point in the broadcast he can find. We grin as we watch Snow get red in the face, struggling to keep a calm demeanor while bits and pieces of the propo cut him off again and again. The images we see are perfectly edited, ten seconds of film here and there that punch you in the gut. Me, a smile on my face as I speak to the wounded and the refugees. Johanna and I diving to the pavement and rolling behind a dumpster as a chunk of building lands where we were moments before. Me standing on a roof with my bow held up, a fireball consuming the wing of a plane. The wing of a plane showing the Capitol's insignia as I talk about the bombing. Most powerful of all, a segment of me storming towards the camera as I growl, "Fire is catching, and if we burn, you will burn with us!" Snow tries to end on a dignified note, but Beetee hits him one more time, cutting the screen to black. The words 'Fire is catching' burn through the blackout for a few seconds, then the screen burns away. At that point, the Capitol shut down the broadcast and all you could see was their insignia.

Everyone in Command laughs and congratulates us all, even Coin nodding at me with a smile on her face. We did a good job today, at least to them. Johanna and I though... "Jojo, can we go?" She kisses my head and whispers back, "Of course we can, brainless." I roll to my feet, keeping her hand in mine, and turn for the door. I stop for a moment before I leave, turning and clearing my throat to get everyone's attention. "I... I think I'm going to go to my quarters. I lost a lot of people today, even if I couldn't have saved them. I just..." I don't finish, I can't, but my silence speaks for me. The words I do not say tell the story I cannot voice. I wish I had known what was coming, I wish I could have stopped the bombs from falling. The people I met I would give anything to save, and that I couldn't protect them weighs heavily on me. Everyone in Command stares at me solemnly, the words they will not say hanging heavy in the air, and I turn away and into the hall beyond. I want nothing to do with today anymore. I let my beloved tug me along the halls, not paying attention to where I'm going. I hear a door close behind me, I feel her arms settle around me, but it isn't until she forces me to turn around and tugs me into her embrace that I give up.

I wrap her into a hug and lay my head on her shoulder, shaking from the effort of not reacting. I feel a wetness on my cheeks and I think she's crying until I feel the sobs start. I blink to clear my swimming vision, but it only gets worse and I can hear these weak little mewls echoing back to me. When my knees buckle and my breath catches badly enough that I can't fully inhale, some part of my mind recognizes that the tears and the sobs are mine. We sink to the ground and I curl into her, clinging to Johanna as the only solid thing I have left, and I let myself cry. Somewhere in there, she begins to cry as well, her tears making my hair damp, and we hold each other through the hysteria and the sorrow. During the eternity that the night has become, we somehow get stripped and into bed before crying again, both of us remembering the faces of those that the Capitol has killed. Johanna remembers her family, and she remembers Blight. She had told me once that he wasn't much, but he was from home. I remember Peeta, and I remember the baker. I remember the mayor, and I remember Madge. I remember Rue, the sweet little girl whose death gave me the first push towards becoming what I am today. I remember Mags, the kindly old woman who volunteered to save Annie Cresta from having to go into the arena again, who sacrificed herself for Finnick and I. I remember Wiress, a woman who might have been completely off her rocker but who was also one of the geniuses that enabled our escape. We both remember the dead of District Eight as we cry ourselves into the oblivion of sleep, wrapped in the only protection we have against the night anymore. The last thought I have before exhaustion claims me is, _'At least I don't have to face this alone. At least Johanna is with me.' _I turn my head, thinking to kiss her hair, and instead fall asleep nuzzling her head. Even after crying for most of the night, we each wear a contented smile in rest.

* * *

**A/N:** Kind of a heavy chapter, but I'm actually proud of it. I did this without having the book at hand to reference anything, so I apologize if the pacing is off, but I had a vision for what would happen anyway. I wanted to end this a couple paragraphs earlier actually, but it just didn't feel right. Still, when it DID finish itself, it was powerful and a little painful. So yay! I guess.

Thank you so much for all of the continued support and reviews, it makes me so happy to see so much positive feedback! I can't express how much it means to me that y'all continue to be here, that you keep coming back for more, and that you want me to keep doing this. I love y'all, and it's great that you're enjoying what I make. :)


	10. History Lessons

The days and nights seem to melt away into a series of moments for us, unending flashes of light and dark that press on our hearts. Everything seems all out of order, out of joint, out of life, and out of place, leaving only her and I together through it all. After the assault on District Eight, Johanna and I throw ourselves into the training harder and harder until there is nothing outside of it, nothing other than the training, the guns, the physical and mental conditioning. I push myself until I can run laps around the training grounds for hours on end without tiring, until the obstacle course has to be done forwards and back before I'm out of breath. Johanna repeats the little things over and over, never stopping or slowing down, until she can take apart her rifle, clean it, and reassemble it with her eyes closed. She stays on the range using the training markers until I finish my running, and then we go together to the close combat training. There is no one who can beat us anymore except each other, and that in itself has caused a new hobby to rise in Thirteen: betting on which siren will win that day.

We don't ever pay attention to that sort of thing, it just doesn't matter to us. What our world has become is learning to be soldiers for the war while others are watching, and learning how to be together when the lights are off and the world is no larger than our room. The night before our world is turned on its ear again is one of those nights. I lay on the bed we share with my head in her lap and a pad of paper in my hands while she reads by the light of a solar lantern on her dresser. She's playing with my hair just like she always does, but that's all the attention I'm getting because of that book. I don't mind, it means she doesn't notice when I shift my head to look at her every few minutes. She never notices it anymore, which means that she doesn't know my secret: I discovered about a week after our mission in Eight that I like to draw. I don't have the eye for color and such that Peeta did, so painting is out of the picture, but I like to draw and I'm actually not bad. I have a hidden treasure trove of the sketches I make, and they are all of her. I spend as much time on them as I can, and I have drawn her face so many times that I don't even need to be looking at her to get it right and yet I don't ever want to stop looking at her. She is the most beautiful woman in the world, and she is mine, and that is all that matters to me.

I look up again, trying to get the way the light plays on her nose and her cheek just right, but this time she's noticed and she's watching me work. My eyes lock onto hers, amber pools dancing with a teasing light as she stares at the last two hours' work on my page, and I cannot look away. I hear the faint snap of her book closing, the light clatter of it being put down, but all I can do is stare into the eyes of the woman I love so much it hurts to think of how we were almost parted. I feel her fingertips trace the line of my jaw, I shudder as they trail down my neck and over my collarbones, but still I cannot look away. I don't want to, my whole world is contained in the look she is giving me, love and teasing and joy and affection. She leans forward, and my breath catches in my throat, waiting for the kiss that must be coming to send me soaring again, only to have her whisper to me, "Caught you." She tweaks my nose, then kisses it and takes the paper right out of my hands so she can look at it closer. "Is this really how you see me?" she asks, a note of uncertainty in her voice. I can see just how vulnerable that question is making her feel, like the answer is the most dangerous thing she's ever come across, as if it might break her.

I sit up and scoot along the bed until I am pressed against her body, the soft curve of her chest molding to the pressure and warming my side. My arms slide around her waist and hold her close, my lips trail soft caresses up her neck and over her face until she is blushing from the moment. I nuzzle into her neck before finally replying, "Yes Jojo, that's really how I see you. That's how everyone sees you, because that is really how beautiful and amazing you are." She shivers and I think she is uncertain whether to cry or kiss me until I pass out, so I take the decision away from her and stand, padding over to my own dresser. I sit on the bed that never gets used and pull out the top drawer, rooting around under the clothes for the folder that I keep there. Once I have it in my hand, I return to the woman who has saved me, saved my heart and my life, and curl into her again. I let my hair fall into my face, nervous and giddy and unsure all at once, and open the folder to show the papers within.

A finished piece of Johanna, asleep in her bed with the light playing across her face and her bare shoulder. A sketch of her as she polishes and cares for her axes. Another sketch of how she looked the first day she wore the armor that Cinna made for us. A drawing of the gentle look her face gets when she looks at me when we are alone. The way she looks in my memory when she came out of the jungle in the arena. The way she looks when someone says something she hates or doesn't agree with. Johanna in all her glory as she steps from the shower, still dripping with towel in hand. There is even a drawing of the way she seems to me when she wakes me from a nightmare, an angel of mercy come to save me from the darkness. Sketch after sketch until the tears that were building run down her face, one long-fingered hand pressed over her mouth as she rifles through them all. When she looks at me again, she isn't any version of Johanna Mason that I've ever seen, she is just a beautiful woman with short hair and the most stunning golden brown eyes I've ever seen. In this moment, right now, she is just Jojo, the girl who fell in love with a silly, blunt girl from District Twelve who never deserved to be so lucky. Yet when she kisses me, the papers flying off the bed and scattering on the floor, I can believe that maybe, just maybe, I really do deserve her.

* * *

The morning comes too quickly for either one of us, and it does not come gently. We wake up to a banging on the door of our compartment at six, and this is an hour that we are never friendly at, so I roll out of bed and disregard the need to put on any clothes. Yanking the door open, I scream into the hallway beyond, "What the fuck do you want so badly?" Then I notice that the person who was so insistent outside our door is none other than Gale, still a little bruised from the beating I gave him weeks ago and staring at my naked body with his mouth flapping soundlessly. He looks like a fish lying on the ground, an image that would usually make me quite cheerful but which only makes me angrier at this moment until I feel Johanna's hands slide over my hips and fold together over my belly. Her bare breasts press into my shoulder blades and I smile, able to be a little more chipper now that she is so blatantly supporting me. I cannot resist the urge to push my hips back and give a little shake, bringing a small pant into my ear as I grind on her. Somehow, that snaps Gale out of whatever shock he was in and he manages to choke out, "It's today. They're going after Finnick today." The grin is wiped off my face at that and I slam the door shut in his face. I feel Johanna's warm abandon me and I turn about to lean against the door for support.

"Today? It's... today?" Neither one of us knows what to do, what to say, how to handle this or how to even think coherent thoughts. I'm startled into action when the door shudders under his thunderous attack again and he bellows through the door, "Come on Katniss, they need you right now. Bring it- I mean bring her too, they said they want both of you. You're supposed to do an interview live or something as a distraction for their covert operation. They're gonna bring him home today, you gotta move!" I shout back through the door telling him to go away, we'll come as soon as we're ready, but I know that both of us will never really be ready for this. We will never be ready to be a distraction when we could be acting, we will never be ready to be the ones that help bring Finnick home without lifting a finger, we will never be ready to stop hiding from the people we have lost. And yet, that is exactly what we need to do today.

We struggle to get dressed and maintain the veneer of calm that we are used to having when we are out among the citizens of the district, but the simple thought that Finnick is coming home today makes that impossible. Even though this is far from the home he knows, it is the only home he has left for now, and we are the only family he has anymore. He needs us to be there for him, to help bring him back, and we need him to come back whole, in one piece and ready to fight alongside us when we take down Snow. We are dressed and out the door of the compartment, running for Command in the hopes that someone will tell us what we are to do, when we run into Plutarch. I see the smile on his face, but it is the words that tumble from his mouth that concern me, sticky sweet honey hiding the poison of our assignment. "Hello ladies, nice to see you. Head down to the hangar, we're flying you out to the ruins of Twelve. You're going to tell your stories and we are going to air them live in the Capitol. Beetee is pretty sure he can get them to remain uninterrupted."

* * *

Once again, I stand in the ashes of the only home I've ever known. This time it is not a mission I gave myself, a hunt to see what little could have survived and a penance to see the results of my actions, but is instead a conscious choice to show us, Johanna and I, amongst the devastation the Capitol has wrought. We are the Mockingjays, the Sirens of the Wood, the strongest and most beloved female victors of this decade, and the Capitol has taken almost everything from us. Today, we are here to tell them exactly how much their beloved entertainment has cost.

I wander through the rubble, Johanna's hand in mine, and I feel lost again. Adrift at sea in a terrible storm without end, the dust that remains of all that I ever knew blowing around my feet, my slow tread heavy as I stumble towards the rubble that used to be the Hall of Justice. What they left behind when they bombed us is nothing more than a shell, pieces of wall that stand on their own and bits of stone that used to be so intimidating to everyone in the district. I take a seat on all that is left of the carved marble that made up the entryway, the worn letters spelling out 'Justice', and look into Cressida's cameras. Johanna gives my hand a squeeze before stepping back, and I begin to speak.

"My name is Katniss Everdeen. I'm sitting on the rubble of the Hall of Justice in what is left of my home, a place that is now nothing more than the burned out husks of houses, with ash covering the bones of those who didn't make it out. This is District Twelve. It wasn't much, but this was my home. I remember what it was like growing up here, a place where the community was divided in two along barely discernable financial lines but everyone still sought to help everyone else. My father worked in the mines, my mother worked as an apothecary. She had been a merchant's daughter selling medicines, so she knew herbs and she made a new business for herself once she married dad. She was so beautiful then. I've returned here once since the Quell and I found a photo of her on her wedding day, and she glowed. I miss that, I miss knowing that she was once so... radiant, because for as long as I can remember, she hasn't been.

I was eleven when the disaster struck our family. My sister was seven years old, barely able to take care of herself as it was, but she was the heart of our family. My dad and I would gather what we could inside the fence and take it home, then we would defy the laws and we would leave the district. The fence around Twelve was so rarely electrified that it was easy to get out, to go into the woods and hunt, and he taught me to survive out there. I lived for the days when I could be with my father in the woods, walking among the trees and reveling in the freedom that came without having a fence around my life. I remember him teaching me to sing, his voice lifting through the trees and bringing a new life to the wilderness, and I remember the way that his music gave me wings. I even remember that when he sang, the birds would stop to listen. Then came the day that everything changed.

I was at school when the alarms started to ring. Panic spread through everyone, and I ran for the second grade rooms even though I knew nothing could be wrong there. I just had to see that my sister was okay. I stopped in the door and she was still in her seat waiting for me, just like she had been taught, and a weight lifted off my chest and I could breathe again. I took her hand and we fled for the square, looking for our mother. It wasn't all that hard to find her, there weren't a lot of people in the Seam with blonde hair and blue eyes. She checked us over and made sure we were okay, and then we waited. There was dust billowing up out of the mine shaft but nothing else for what seemed like hours. When all hope had almost faded, the tide of people began and families were reunited in relief. We waited still, no sign of dad anywhere with the other miners, and we waited some more. Even when everyone else had left, we waited with the hope that he had just been trying to get everyone else out, that he would emerge from that place and sweep us up in his arms, but... he never did.

My mom shut down and abandoned us when he died. I don't mean that we were home alone, that would have actually been easier to deal with. She just checked out, this lost and far away look in her eyes, and she lay in bed doing nothing. She'd get up like she had a purpose, and then lay back down looking confused. I fought tooth and nail to keep Prim and I looking like we were okay, like everything was fine at home, because if we didn't we would be taken away and put into state housing. I couldn't let that happen to Prim, those kids were broken, hopeless, and I didn't want that life for her. So I fought to keep us looking presentable, but I still almost failed. If it hadn't been..." At this thought, my voice breaks and I have to take a moment to compose myself. I almost cry remembering who saved me from starvation, but I have to rally and keep going. "If it hadn't been for Peeta Mellark, I would be gone and so would Prim. He saved us, all because he was simply too kind-hearted. That day, it was cold and raining and I was rummaging through garbage cans looking for something, anything, I could take home and cook until it fell apart so we could eat. He saw me when his mother yelled at me for going through her cans and he... He burned some bread loaves on purpose, the heavy kind with fruit and nuts inside, and he accepted the beating his mother gave him. When he was told to feed the bread to the pigs, he threw me the loaves instead, still hot from the oven. I ran all the way home with them.

I fed us on that bread for a week, making it last for as long as I could, and when we ran out, it was a sunny day and the flowers were blooming. After school, I saw him looking at me and I looked away, embarrassed and uncertain, and I saw a dandelion growing at my feet. I remembered that my dad had taught me to forage, and because Peeta gave me hope with that bread, I was able to keep going long enough to gather my courage and return to the woods I had avoided since dad died. At first I stayed close to the fence, but eventually... eventually I started going deeper and deeper and hunting for longer. I met my friend Gale in the woods, and we worked together. He taught me to make snares, and I taught him to shoot, and in the woods we were family. It turned out he had lost his father in the mines the same day I lost mine. In those days, he was the best friend I could have asked for. He kept me going." I stop talking, not wanting to go any further and not knowing what I would even say if I did, and Johanna walks forward to take my hands. I know that this is the first time she's heard my story and I mumble an apology to her for not telling it sooner, but she stills my lips with a finger and smiles at me. "My turn," she murmurs, and then she holds me down when I make to leave and I can feel her shaking. I snuggle into her side instead and lay my head on her shoulder to listen.

Her voice is strong, harsh, but the words and the way she says them tell me just how much it hurts for her to say any of this. "I am Johanna Mason, and I have lost so much and yet gained what I needed to keep on living. When I was a kid in District Seven, I was the only girl in a family of boys. I had three older brothers and a younger brother, and we fought all the time. I mean, we fought _all_ the fucking time. I learned how to fight from them, how to be strong, but I had a reason to live that was given to me by someone else. There was... this girl. She was everything I wasn't. She was soft, she was petite, she was sweet and caring and approachable and an only child, and she was perfect. When we were younger, we didn't know what we were doing was considered wrong, we didn't know that what we were doing was even romantic. We just walked hand in hand everywhere, I would protect her from anyone that tried to hurt her, and she would kiss me on the cheek at what seemed like random times simply because she felt like it.

Her name was Lise Amell. She was everything to me, the sun, moon and stars, but it wasn't until I was Reaped that either of us even realized it. She came to say goodbye and whatever words she had died on her tongue. Instead, she stood there like a deer in the spotlight, twitching and almost hyperventilating, and then she just sprung forward and pressed her lips to mine. Neither one of us had ever been kissed, so it was a new experience for both of us, and it broke my heart. I knew, I just _knew_ that I was going to die, and now she had just given me something I didn't even realize I wanted or didn't have. I went to the Games and I fought to stay alive until the very end, and that's when what my brothers had taught me took over. It wasn't me against the careers anymore, it was me against prey, and they didn't even know it. I think I actually lost myself a bit when that happened, but all I knew was the axe in my hand and the spray of blood on my face, and I loved it. I loved it right up until they said the Games were over and I won, right up until I realized that meant I was going home. Then I was horrified, because Lise had seen me turn into a beast on live television. What would she say?

Before I left the Capitol, the President himself came to have a chat with me. He made me an offer that I wasn't supposed to refuse, but I did. He told me to think about it, and he would ask me again soon. He told me to think about the people I loved, but I never in a million years would have guessed that he knew about Lise, or that he would do anything to her. I told him right then that I didn't have to think about it, that I would never say yes, that I would never agree to sell my honor and my dignity for him. He shook his head in what I think was disappointment, but he said he understood my kind all too well and had even expected it. He had hoped I would see reason, but that was obviously not the case. He bid me farewell, and I left the Capitol. I had won, and I was proud. I shouldn't have been so happy though.

I returned home to find my entire district on the streets, cheering my name and clapping and whistling for me. I must have received a dozen proposals of marriage, mostly joking but a little serious, and I turned them all down. I looked for Lise, hoping she would be there, and she was. Way at the back of the crowd, she stood there and smiled at me, a little wary but happy to see me. I remember diving off the platform and running to her, taking her in my arms and kissing her for the whole district to see, and when I pulled back I looked into her eyes and told her that I loved her. I was in the perfect place to see the light die when the gunshots rang out, to feel the blood spray on my chest, to catch the spurt of red she coughed up on my face. I watched the girl I loved die in my arms, and yet Snow still wasn't done with me. My family gathered around me, trying to sooth me and protect me, and the gunshots rang out again. As one, my brothers fell to the ground, bleeding on the paving stones and gasping for their last breaths. I screamed for them, my mother tried to stop the bleeding on my little brother, and I watched as red blossomed from her temple and a little hole appeared. She slumped to the ground with her eyes still open, and my dad was next. He dove in front of me, thinking to protect me, and when he was shot he fell on top of me. I lost everyone I loved that day.

For the six years after that, I was hard. I forced myself to not care about anyone so that no one else would die because of me, but that couldn't last. I didn't know it, but because of the actions of a girl who would not be controlled, I was doomed again. I watched as Katniss pulled the berries from that pouch of cloth, and I think it was in that moment that I started to crack. I thought that she was in love with the bread boy, just like everyone else, but that moment of defiance rang so truly of something I would have done if the option had presented itself that I couldn't help being a little spellbound. Then came the Quell, and everything that I never thought I could have fell right into my lap. I was terrified, because what if the President found out? He'd known about Lise, what would he do if he found out that I actually was sweet on the Girl on Fire? I did my best to ignore her, but the parade into the Training Center made that impossible. Cinna made that impossible, just like he always had. She was a goddess that night, and I couldn't stop myself. I had to be close to her. I managed to get into the elevator with her and bread boy, and when she couldn't stop looking at me I dared to hope.

She showed me that I knew nothing about her that night, both in the elevator and afterwards when she found me on the roof. I was trying to be playful, to make her uncomfortable so that I could punish her for being so damn delicious that I wanted her, but the way she reacted to me made my head spin. When she fainted in my arms, I knew I was a goner. I got her to her bed, left a note, and ran away. She dared to admit to me the next morning that she couldn't stop looking at me, that she couldn't stop reacting to me, and it drove me on until I swear that she actually ran away from me. That night, she found me on the roof again, and she rocked my world. I told her that she smelled like home, and she smiled that shy little smile that she has right now and she told me I smelled like home to her too. She even called me Jojo, and I loved it. Everything we were moved so quickly and formed into everything we are, and the arena only made it even more apparent to us that we couldn't live without each other. I had to make sure she got out, and she fought to make sure we both could, and when that forcefield came down we both thought we failed when the hover picked us up. At least, we thought we'd failed until her mentor welcomed us to freedom. I cannot tell you how that felt, being told that I'm free and that I get to be with the woman of my dreams." She finishes her speech, and I can't help myself. I lift my head up and grab her face in my hands, tell her I love her so fiercely that I know the camera picks it up, and I kiss her until the world around me dissolves to nothing and she is all that is left.

* * *

We're waiting outside of the hospital wing, all too familiar with the lighting and the smell of it all, hoping beyond all hope that we'll get to see Finnick soon. The mission went off without a hitch and they got him out, even managing to free his Annie along with him, but he was in bad shape and they wouldn't let us in to see our friend. Hours pass slowly out here as we hope, and yet nothing is happening and we're beginning to lose patience when the doctors finally step out of the room. The head doctor waves us over and speaks in a soft, sad voice. "He's going to make it, but that's about all the good news I have. He was tortured, horribly and almost without end, and it has left him a broken man. From what I can tell, they stopped beating him fairly early and resorted to something that is, in my opinion, much crueler to a man like him." Johanna loses her cool and shouts at him to just hurry up and spit it out, and he flinches but continues. "They would soak him in water and then electrify the puddle he was laying in." Our gasps are soft but the horror on our faces reflects back to us in the lenses of his glasses. "What little he managed to say before he fell asleep under the morphling drip assures us that he never said anything harmful to the rebellion, but I'm afraid that that is the root of the problem. He would not give them the information they wanted, so they continued to torture him with the water and electricity. Now, he..." I hear him pause to swallow his fear and his upset, then the words he speaks knocks the floor from under me. "He's... we tried to sponge bathe him, and when a tiny trickle of water went over his skin, he screamed and had a massive panic attack. He injured three nurses and one of the other doctors. He's terrified of water."

000000000

**A/N:** Ta-daa. This is what happened to poor Finnick. This is the consequence of Johanna making it to District Thirteen instead of him.

I had some issues writing the chapter because after the fluffy beginning, I didn't know what to write. I fought with myself overnight, and then this morning I finally managed to start putting words on the page, and once I was in District Twelve again it was easy. Tell me what you think!


	11. Home at Last

_~F_

I wake up in an unfamiliar medical facility, all clean and clinical lights and smooth concrete walls with nothing of the home I knew or the Capitol I was forced to love. I remember bits and pieces of many things, but the moments that stand out the most are the ones I've been dreaming of for a while now. Every moment that stands out in my mind is another moment that Snow has taken something from me, or corrupted something I held dear, all to get at the little pieces that I never gave him. I would never tell him anything about the rebellion, because if I did, Katniss and Johanna would be the worst part of the coming nightmare. Not because they would hurt me, or because they would be angry, but because they would be hurt and betrayed, and there would be nothing I could do to make that better, to make that go away. But now, in this moment, I feel hope springing forth from my chest, bright and new and full of a life I wish I still possessed, drugged into motionlessness as I am. I hope beyond all hope that I am in District Thirteen, that the rebellion has come for me, saved me and brought with me the only hope for happiness I still have.

* * *

_Katniss and I stumble to a stop, the wire leading back behind us taut and vibrating. I look at her in horror, that same expression and fear echoing back to me in her eyes. Her stormy gaze flicks to the ground when the wire snaps, and now I have a decision to make and only a few heartbeats in which to do it. I know how betrayed she's about to feel, but I know that it's the only sure option I have to ensure that she gets a chance to live, so I sweep the end of my trident into her temple, knocking her down to her back. I see the hurt in her eyes, the disbelief even as I stab one of the tines of my weapon into her arm and dig for that tracker. I don't have the time to explain why I did it, or what I'm doing, so I just lean forward and whisper that she has to be the Mockingjay, that she has to live for us all. I take some of the blood pouring out of her and push down my worry that I cut too deep and too hard so I can wipe it across her throat, then I'm on my feet and running. I force myself on, I force myself to hope that the Careers will follow me and leave her on the ground, and I force myself to be obvious and lead them away._

_I get my reward when Enobaria crashes into my legs from behind, her growls loud and wild as she tries to crawl up my body to use those razors she calls teeth to rip out my throat. I roll and punch her as hard as I can while laying on my back, only to realize that I have no time to waste on fighting her. My trident plants in the earth beside me and I twist as much as I can to avoid the spear that Brutus is jabbing at me, opening a line of fire on my back when I can't move far enough to avoid the attack. His weight drives the haft of the trident into the ground, but he doesn't fall. He's lodged it far enough in that it will hold him up even as he loses the strength to stand, the points projecting from his back and blood spewing from his lips as he chokes and drowns on it. I have no weapon now except the spear he tried to kill me with, so I grab it and turn just in time to avoid a knife in the back. Enobaria drives the point into my shoulder and I bull her to the ground again, standing with the spear in one hand and preparing to impale her as well. Then the world shatters and the shockwave knocks me to the ground, my knee crushing her nose as I am blasted over her. We are both unconscious after that._

* * *

_The man in black enters the room I'm in again, the straps on my wrists and ankles keeping me from attacking him like I did yesterday. He tugs on his leather gloves and asks me a question that I answer by spitting in his face. He punches me and I drift away until the icy chill of water drenches me and clears my head. He asks me again and I say nothing, so he flips the table I'm strapped to so that it's upright and I might as well be standing, then punches my gut. I cannot breathe, but I still refuse to answer. He asks again, and I say nothing. This has been going on for days now, and he still doesn't seem to get the message: I will not falter and I will not betray. He sighs and tells me that he is disappointed in me, that he had hoped I wouldn't force him to do this but now he has no choice. The door opens again and a girl is brought in with a bag on her head. When he takes it off, I scream and bellow and tell him that if he hurts her I will kill him. It's my Annie._

_He asks me again, but I cannot answer him, I WILL not answer him, not even for her, and she knows that. The look she gives me says that she already forgives me, that she knows this is not my fault, that she knows I am not the one hurting her, and it gives me the strength to stay silent even as the man slaps her and leaves a bruise on her cheek. She will not speak because she knows nothing, and I will not speak because I know too much. The man takes a knife and lays it against her throat, threatening that if I do not tell him what he wants to know, he will kill her. I speak and tell him that I already know he won't do that, because then he will have nothing to use against me. He growls in anger, but he knows I'm right. Instead, he carves her cheek open and she and I weep to see the blood, but still I stay silent._

* * *

_Caesar greets me back to his show and I can see the surprise in his posture. I am healed enough to be seen by the Capitol, and Snow is banking on the rebels watching as well, because he has Caesar asking questions about the Games. I answer truthfully, and though it pains me to do so, I tell him about what life is like in the arena, what it's like to be a tribute. He looks ill as I speak, but he soldiers on and shows me exactly how much orchestrating Snow is doing. He asks questions designed to cast doubt on Katniss, to make it seem like she is a dangerous radical, to make it seem that she is something that she is not, and I answer the same way. I speak words that Snow can interpret however he wants, but that Katniss and Johanna will understand if they truly are watching. I tell them to fight, to never let anyone control them, to be happy, and to remember the fallen. I include myself and Annie among that number, sure that we will never be free and that we will be dead soon because of my stubborn refusal to play the game by the rules that our illustrious president has set out. After I am escorted back to my cell that night, the real torture begins._

* * *

_It's only a few days since the interview, but already things are happening that Snow has no control over. They are in the middle of torturing me as usual when the order comes over the line to tune in for the propaganda spot that always comes, except today something goes wrong. Snow is speaking, then the screen flickers and I see Katniss and Johanna among a crowd of wounded civilians, smiling and comforting them. I am so proud of them right then, and when the broadcast returns, I am grinning. I gladly take the punch that my mirth has earned me, only to see another moment flash on screen. Katniss and Johanna diving out harm's way at the last second, armored cowls covering their faces and flashes of white just under their arms as rubble crashes to the earth where they were a moment before. When Snow is seen again, his jaw twitches but he continues to speak as though there was no interruption, only for another to come. Katniss stands on a rooftop, a black longbow in her hands and one arm raised as though she just fired a shot, followed by a fireball consuming the wing of a plane flying overhead and sending it into a spin. Snow is starting to look a little red in the face now, but it still isn't over._

_The next interruption is Katniss' voice speaking over a panned shot of the wreckage of the district she is in, and I recognize it before she says that it's District Eight. She talks about the attack, how it was targeting a field hospital, and unreasoning anger rises up in my chest. When the next punch comes in response to my expression, I fight to keep my head still and just spit the blood in my mouth into the face of the man in black. Snow is starting to look a little angry, but still he tries to maintain his facade. Katniss' face fills up the screen and she is shouting directly into the camera now, the words "fire is catching, and if we burn you will burn with us" directed at the source of all of our pain. The man in black is too stunned to hit me anymore, and Snow looks as though he is going to have a coronary. Then the rebels have one last strike, the screen blacking out and the words "fire is catching" burning their way onto the darkness, staying there for a few seconds before burning it all away. The Capitol cuts off the broadcast then, and I know that someone is going to die tonight for this failure of security. I laugh and do not stop until they drench me again and bring a battery into the room, connecting wires to it and dropping them into the puddle I sit in. The pain erases everything else and all I can do is scream._

* * *

_I have lost track of how long this has gone on, but every day it is the man in black asking me questions, and when I do not answer, I am drenched again and the battery is set to the water. The pain blocks out all thought and I can do nothing but writhe in agony, sometimes unable to even scream through the convulsions. It has gone on long enough that the anticipation of the water is almost worse than the water itself. I'm not even sure if they use the battery every time now or not, all I know is the water hits me and the agony starts, so they must use it. The shock of the electricity is the only way to explain the torturous ripping sensation that eats at my nerves and fills my spine and my brain with a fire that never dies. Today is no different, the man is asking questions and when I do not answer, I am drenched and the shocks start, but then he doesn't ask again and I am left in the unending hell that my life has become until strong hands lift me off the floor and the water that was around me is no longer touching me. I am still dripping, but there is no pain now, only relief, and I pass into oblivion._

* * *

_I wake to doctors I do not know telling me that I am safe, that Annie is safe and healthy and that she is here as well. I do not know that things will be better now, but I hope. They ask me questions, simple things like what my name is, where I'm from, where I was, what happened to me. I tell them the answers to those questions carefully, just in case they are leading into questions about the rebellion, but they don't. They have stripped me, and though the female nurses are blushing and smiling, they ask nothing about the rebellion. They have sponges in their hands, damp but safe, and are scrubbing and wiping at my skin. They clean the wounds I have, take care of me and tend to me, but then one of them makes a mistake. Her sponge is too wet, water runs down my back, and I feel the agony of the electricity again. They have tricked me into feeling safe so that they could torture me some more and make it bad again, and I fight back. This time I am not tied down, I am not restrained, and I fight back. I hurt them, but they wrestle me down, restrain me, stick a needle in my arm, and I see that I am in a hospital again, not a torture chamber. There is no battery, only three injured nurses and a doctor nursing three broken fingers. I mumble an apology as the drugs take me to sleep, and they look at me with pity in their eyes._

* * *

_~K_

When they finally let us in to see Finnick, we expect to see a wreck, a shell of the man we knew. Instead, we find that he looks much like he always did, just paler and covered in bruises and fresh, shiny scars on his arms and legs. He's everything that we lost, everything that we want to fight for, but he is so broken and yet so normal that we do not know how to handle it. Johanna looks at me, a deer in the spotlight, and I push her forward to sit on his bed. I slip around to the other side of him and sit, leaning back and resting on Johanna so that we bridge his legs. We each take a hand and we sit with him in silence, not saying a word and not needing to as we watch him sleep. I think we both feel a need to watch over him now that we have him back. I look at him as the friend that sacrificed himself and his safety to give me a chance with the woman I love, but I know from the look on her face that Johanna sees him as the brother she no longer has, the only family she has left. The hours pass, and eventually I leave her to sit with him and I go to get us some food. She eats mechanically, though I doubt she tastes it or notices it at all, and I fall asleep in a chair while she watches over him.

I dream of the Games again, fearing what happened and knowing what will happen. I see in clear detail every moment where something went wrong, where plans that were made fell apart. The Feast in my first Games, the moment when Clove sat on me and gloated, when I was sure I was going to die and Peeta would die soon after because I had failed him. The moment when Tresh beat her skull in with a rock. The moment when I believed that I had still failed Peeta after we won, throwing myself at the dividing wall between us. The moment when Snow visited me in my home in Twelve and I realized that though we won and escaped, the Games would never be over for us. Worse yet, I dreamed of Peeta hitting that forcefield, of his body flying back and crashing to the ground, of Finnick trying so desperately to save him and bring him back from the edge of death, of his ribs collapsing and sounding the note of his death. And I dream of cannons, loud and thunderous, as they bark out the death of someone else important. _BOOM._ Rue dying on the point of Marvel's spear, the choking sobs as I try to sing her to her death. I see the flowers that I laid out around her, showing that even in the arena, someone cared about her, someone loved her. _BOOM._ Cinna being beaten and dragged from me even as I rose up the tube, the crimson splash of his blood burned into my retinas and my memories. I still weep for the man who cared so quietly and always captured everything exactly as it should be. _BOOM._ Peeta dying because I wasn't fast enough. _BOOM._ Mags running into the mist to give Finnick and I a chance to make it out alive. _BOOM_. Wiress dying at the Cornucopia because we were trying to figure out our plan. _BOOM._ Madge dying in the bombing of Twelve. _BOOM._ The baker dying as the flames burned my home to ashes. _BOOM._ The injured children dying in the bombing of Eight. _BOOM. BOOM. BOOM._

I wake with a scream, the faces of the dead haunting me even now and hanging in front of my eyes. Johanna's arms are around me, their embrace shrinking all the world until only the room we are in remains. I see Finnick's green eyes staring at me through the haze of the morphling and he smiles. He speaks softly and I feel Johanna go stiff in my lap, so I guess that these are the first words he has said since our vigil began. "Hey Katniss... you treating... my sister... okay?" I hear the breath catch in my lumberjack's throat and I rub soothing circles on her back. I nod to him and smile, unable to speak, and then Johanna is gone and sitting on his bed again, his hand crushed in her grip as she hisses at him through her tears, "Don't you ever do that again, you fucking dummy. Don't you ever fucking abandon me like that again, you hear me?" She relents almost immediately, loosening her grip and bursting into tears. She tugs him up off the bed and holds him, crying into his shoulder when he asks what's wrong, and I know the answer before she says it. The torture he had to endure took from him the greatest joy he had, and now we all feel the loss because the water that was such a big part of who Finnick was is now something that terrifies him and causes him pain. He isn't the man we knew anymore, and it hurts our hearts to know that. I wrap them both in my arms and stay there for a while, finally murmuring, "Welcome back, Triton."

* * *

At breakfast I get my first glimpse of Annie since the Reaping of the Quell. She is just as beautiful in a way, though she seems too gentle, too meek to be a Victor. We all know the story of how it happened, of the deal that Snow made with Finnick to save her life and ensure that she would be the winner of her Games, but I hadn't really been prepared to see the truth of it standing right in front of me. She has a twitchy way about her, like every noise is too loud and too immediate and she doesn't know whether to trust it or not, and she has a few new scars herself. The worst is the pale line down her cheek, a long and wide scar that breaks the perfect tan of her skin. Even as I make these observations, I notice several other things. She is sitting with man who has sandy hair and green eyes, and it takes me a moment to realize that it's Finnick before I remember that Plutarch had told us he was being released for meals. We had woken up to an empty medical bay and panicked, flying out the door and down the corridors until we found someone important who could tell us what was going on. Johanna leans against me as we watch Annie feed him, using that action to focus and ignore everything around her as she takes care of the man she so obviously loves. My lover whispers in my ear, asking, "Would you do that for me, Kat? Would you feed me if I had been tortured into crazy?" I turn to her and kiss her, then reply, "Of course, you know I would Jojo. I will always take care of you, as long as you do the same for me."

When the meal is over and we are leaving to go train, I feel a soft hand land on my shoulder and turn me around. I expect to see Annie, to have her thank me for protecting him in the arena or for being there for him last night, but instead I find myself pulled into Finnick's arms. He apologizes profusely for what he did in the arena, for worrying Johanna so much, for not being there when we got out, for everything that wasn't in his control in the first place, and I just hug him back. I try to tell him it isn't his fault, that he did everything we could have asked for and stayed strong until we could rescue him, but I can't speak. I'm still no good with words, and I don't know how to fix this for him anyway. I don't know how to make it better, so I just hold him and look to my lover, silently begging for her help. She hunts down Plutarch at my glance and tells him that there is a change of plans for today, that we need to take care of Finnick, and she leaves no room for discussion or argument before she turns away and walks us both back to the hospital. We sit Finnick on his bed and stay with him in silence until he begins to speak.

"I know that what I did was necessary, but I still feel guilty about it. I know that I caused you both so much pain, both directly and indirectly, and for that I am unendingly sorry. Katniss, I'm sorry I couldn't save Peeta. He may not have really been what everyone believed he was to you, but I'm still sorry that I couldn't save him. I'm also sorry for hitting you so hard, for cutting your arm, for abandoning you in the arena, and though I had to do it to give you a chance, it still haunts me when I sleep. Johanna, I'm sorry for not making it out. I'm sorry I worried you, and I'm sorry I hurt Katniss as badly as I did. I hope you can both forgive me for that." We wrap him in our arms as he continues, "I fought to keep you guys safe. They asked so many questions, but I never told them anything. I kept my mouth shut, no matter how many times they hit me. When that wasn't working, they started to torture me with wires. They said that they wanted to know if our plan in the arena would have worked. If I didn't answer them, they would pour cold saltwater over me and drop wires attached to a battery into the puddle. The pain... you can't imagine how horrible it felt to go through that. Every muscle locking up until I couldn't move, my nerves on fire... I felt like I was being bathed in broken glass. The only thing that kept me going, that kept me strong, was the thought that you were safe, that you were alive and fighting back. When you rebellious rebels messed with the Capitol broadcast that one time, you showed me I was right, and I fought harder. I never gave up. You two are so amazing, I... I don't think I really even deserve to know you. It's such a privilege to know you both..." Finnick begins to cry, and we don't know what to do. I start to try and console him, rubbing his back and playing with his hair, and Johanna begins babbling endlessly about all the things he's ever done for her.

She talks about how he helped her pick herself up after her own Games, how he helped her deal with the deaths of her family. She tells a story of one year when they both knew their tributes were going to die, and so they swapped duties and he took care of Seven while she took care of Four. I remember that year, though only because of the events she talks about, and I realize that the tributes that year had been so confused when their gifts came in from the sponsors because they had been sent by a mentor they didn't have. District Four had been given a set of pads that were used in Seven while working in the trees just in case you made the wrong move, and District Seven had been sent a net with hooks embedded in it that was used in Four when fishing in shallow water. Surprisingly, the District Seven boy almost won because of that net, and the girl from Four survived more than once because of those pads. In the end though, things didn't work out for them. Johanna keeps talking, the words tumbling out of her mouth painting a picture of the hell we all just went through, and specifically how he made sure that I was still alive when she needed me to be every single time. By the time she runs out of things to say, Finnick has stopped trembling in my arms and he seems calm again. When he looks up, there is even a hint of the man we know peeking out of his sea green eyes, that quirk at the corner of his mouth showing just a little of how his face can light up and make hearts skip. For the first time since the rescue a week ago, Finnick has finally returned to us. This time, we really _have_ saved him, and we have our friend back though he has a long way to go before he is the Triton we knew. Our family is whole again.

00000000

**A/N:** So, here we are again. I keep having the temptation to say "Here we are on the last page," but that's not true, not yet anyway, and it hurts. Anyway, here we are at the end of another chapter, and I just want to say thank you for your faith and your readership. I know that this isn't the easiest story to read sometimes because I have inconsistent timing on the updates, but I do try and make it come quickly.

This chapter had to be about Finnick, without question, because I did make kind of a big deal about him being the one left behind. I told you guys that I had something planned, and I dropped it on you at the end of last chapter though I'm sure some of you had already guessed what was coming. This chapter had to explain it, because I ended up just saying that Finnick was afraid of water without giving any reason for it. I mean, yes, if you know the story of the Hunger Games, then you know why Finnick would fear the water if he took Johanna's place. Still, I wanted to explore that a little bit and show the side of the story that you didn't get to see when Suzanne wrote the story, and I needed to have something to build on when I had him talk to Kat and Jojo at the end. I wanted them to be a family, and since he is all Johanna has left except for Katniss, I needed to have something for him to show how much he cares about them with, and to make your heart go out to him. He is easily a favorite of pretty much anyone who reads these books, and with the story changing like it has I needed to have a good reason for him to need that rope in the new version I'm creating and I wanted to create sympathy for this now tragic man. Everybody give Finnick a great big hug, he needs it!


	12. The Wedding

**A/N:** Hey everybody! I don't usually do forewords, but this time I wanted to pop in before you got into the meat of the chapter and let you know what's up. I'm kind of struggling to write at the moment, though I am trying to do it quickly and fluidly for you all. Most importantly though, PLEASE R&R, I wanna know that I'm still doing this the way you like it! Who knows, a good suggestion might even change the course of events a little bit. :3

00000000

I wake from my dreams, muddled and confused and out of focus, completely unable to think or even remember who I am or who is warming one side of my body. I don't know where I am, and at first it scares me and I reach for a weapon that I know should be just within my reach, but it isn't there. I gasp and sit upright, causing the girl at my side to stir, her dark chocolate waves falling into her face as she mumbles in her sleep, and I relax a little. She just seems so soft, so warm and inviting, and I think to myself, _'This girl would never hurt me, could never hurt me. She's just so... I don't know, just kinda... squiggly. She makes me feel all squiggly.'_ I smile and relax a little more, lean over her and brush some hair from her face, lower my face until I can smell the scent of pines blowing off of her skin with every breath, just brush my lips on her cheek, and a name comes to me. _'Katniss. Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire. That's her name...'_ I realize that it suits her, that it becomes her entirely and no other name would ever be good enough for her, and I don't even know why. She mumbles louder with the touch of my lips and shimmies over more so that she can wrap strong arms that look too slender to have so much strength around me and hold me as if I am the teddy bear that she needs to keep the nightmares away. Maybe I am. I remember now that she has horrible dreams, though how I know that still eludes me, and that she seems to have fewer of them when I'm here. I remember being here for her a lot.

I lean away from her a little and huff in frustration, not understanding why I still don't remember my own name, but then something else floats up in my head. She's a Victor, a survivor of the Hunger Games, and that's why she has so many bad dreams. I know, because I have them too. Then it all comes flooding back. _'My name... My name is Johanna Mason. I am a Victor, a survivor of the 69th hunger games. I come from District Seven, home of the lumber industry. I was asked to be a prostitute when I won, a fucking _**_prostitute_**_. The man who had the nerve to ask was no other than President Corolianus Snow, and I should have cut his fucking balls off right then and there, but I never once believed that he'd actually do something to punish me for telling him no, I didn't want to whore myself out to the rich and the pompous here in tralala-land. I never once believed that he'd have such a power trip going that he would kill anyone who was important to me. I never though for a second that he would kill Lise...'_ A tear falls from my eye as that memory dredges itself up, and I can still feel the sticky warmth of her blood spraying over my face, I can still hear her gasping for breath in my arms as she choked on her own blood. I start to keen softly, but I try to keep it quiet enough that I won't wake up the lovely woman who is still gripping me tightly.

_'I lost my family when I returned home from the Capitol. My brothers were the first to die, then my mother, and then my father in a moment where he believed he was protecting me but I knew better. I knew that they would never kill me, I was too valuable to them as a Victor, I could mentor for their sick Games and I could be held up as the example for why you don't defy them. "See Johanna Mason? She lost everyone she ever cared about because she told me no. Do you want to lose everybody too? I didn't think so. Go suck that purple guy's cock for me, make me money." I will make Snow pay for that, but I will also make him pay for what he did to her. My Katniss... thrown into the Games to protect her sister, and when she made them look like idiots she was punished by being forced to live a lie for the cameras so that they could play her rebellion against their rules off as being lovesick. They threatened everybody she loved so that she would play their game, even if it was a different one than the one they wanted me to play. Then when she didn't play the game well enough to quell the rebellion that she didn't mean to start, she was punished again by being thrown into the Arena again alongside the boy she "loved" and a bunch of us other Victors. I'm sure that snow just loved the idea of throwing me in there again, troublemaker that I am. What he never counted on was what really happened... I found redemption, and she actually found love.'_

I brush the hair out of her face and slide back down so that I can lay with her and hold her as she holds me, an unfamiliar desire to be gentle and cuddly and sweet taking root in my chest. That Katniss can do this to me astounds me, makes me wonder where she's been all my life even though I know the answer to that question. The only thing that I really wonder with any honest verve is why I never introduced myself to her the first time she went into the arena. I know that I was busy trying to train my tributes, but since I was already sure that she was going to win why didn't I at least go say hi? I know Haymitch, I was even friends with him then, why couldn't I just drop by to visit him and oh so conveniently run into her? _'You know the reason why, coward. You were afraid. You were terrified that she would meet you and tell you that you are a monster. You were terrified that she would be scared to meet you, that she would look at you and not want to be near you, that she would only see what you show everyone else and that she wouldn't want to see who you could be. You were afraid that if she looked at you and didn't like what she saw, you would break. You were afraid that she would see your interest and be disgusted. You were afraid of being hurt, so you did your best to train your tributes to take out some of the competition for her because you knew that if she survived the bloodbath, she was going to beat any kid that came from your district. Even though you didn't know how you knew, you knew.'_

She is everything I have ever wanted, and I'm just floored that I suddenly have her when I was sure a year ago that she would never see me. I was sure that she would be too busy being perfect and never even once look down to see the broken mess that I was, and I was so wrapped up in that idea that I never even considered the fact that she would be just as broken and even less able to deal with it because she still had people to protect. It doesn't seem like much at first, but after a while you realize that having people to protect means that you have people you need to lie to as well because you can't let them know how much you hurt. You never let them see the damage, and you never let them see you age, because then everything gets harder. I didn't realize back then that she had to hide from everyone, that she could never show her beloved sister how much she had changed, that she could never let her mother understand that the daughter who left was not the one that came back. I should have known that the girl who was on screen playing the romance as hard as she could was not the real Katniss Everdeen, that she would never look at the baker's son with real love in her eyes. I didn't see it though, I didn't see that she would be hiding the nightmares and the memories and the flashbacks and the horror, because I never had to. Everyone that I loved was dead, so I never bothered to hide a damn thing, and I forgot that other people didn't have that luxury. For the hundredth time since she became a victim of Snow's Quell, I vow to myself that I will hurt him and anyone that he holds dear for what he has done to us, to her.

I kiss her eyelids because I need to, I kiss her nose because I want to, and I snuggle her a little closer because I want to never let her go. I thank whatever gods exist for bringing her to me, for showing me that I was wrong, and for allowing me to be the one that would help her to heal the damage that she was left with. When her eyes, beautiful liquid gray, flutter open, I curse softly to myself. "Fuck. Oh shit baby, I'm sorry I didn't mean to wake you up, go back to sleep." She smiles that smile she has only for me and I feel my heart stutter and then gallop away. She wiggles her hips a little and I feel her legs wrap around my thigh, a damp heat pressing against bare flesh that spikes a desire in me that I ruthlessly push down again because I know she's only trying to be as close to me as she can. "Why... are you awake, Jojo?" she mumbles, her voice soft and breathy in a way that makes that squiggly feeling come back into my chest. I wrap my fingers into hers and give a little squeeze when I reply, "Because I woke up not knowing who I am and I needed to remember. You make me who I am, so I looked at you and couldn't stop." I know how corny and sappy I sound, but I don't care because it's only her and I here and it's going to make her happy. She giggles and gives me a warm grin that is so full of love that I swear I can feel my heart melt, and I can't think anymore so I just turn my face down to her and press our lips together and kiss her until I fall asleep with her head on my shoulder and my hand over her heart.

* * *

I'm nervous and twitchy and wishing that I had a heavy weapon in my hand and a target to slam it into, but there is no way that I can escape today so easily. Today there is a wedding, and I can't bet my thoughts to stop racing. I can't let go of this apprehension, this unreasoning fear that the Peacekeepers are going to swoop in and shoot everybody, because that's what always happens when something good happens to me, that or I get thrown into an arena and told to kill until I'm the only one left. I don't think it helps that Katniss has been gone since nine o'clock this morning and the wedding is at four, and it's almost three now. The last time I saw her, she was going with Annie to get a wedding dress from her house in the Victor's Village in the ruins of District Twelve, and she said that she also had a surprise she wanted to get. I don't know what it is, I can't think of what it could possibly be, and I can't help worrying about her being gone so long, so when I hear a knock at the door of our compartment I jump and grab for a knife I do not have. Then the door opens and I see the shoulder-length tresses of my sweetheart as she backs into the room with two garment bags and almost falls over trying to spin in and close the door at the same time. I see the grin on her face though and it sets my world back into balance, and she holds out one of the bags to me, her face innocent and guileless, so sugary and sweet that I'm afraid to open the damn thing and see what she brought me. When I take the bag though, she bounces forward and kisses my cheek, and suddenly I don't care about anything but that kiss and the happy girl that gave it to me and I turn to open the bag.

In my hands the zipper falls open, and I can't help but gasp when I see the treat that she has brought me. It's the dress, and I don't mean just a dress, not even a pretty one, but _the dress_, the blue velvet dress that I wanted so very badly when she wore it in District Two. She brought me the blue dress from her house in Twelve, she went all the way back to District Twelve to grab a specific dress for me, and she picked the exact one that would make me the happiest, that would make my pulse race the most. I can't believe that she remembered it, or that she would actually bring it back for me, or that I get to wear one of the dresses that Cinna made for her, that she wore... I get to wear my girlfriend's clothes. That thought makes me giggle, and then she hugs me from behind and I can feel her lips press into my neck and I just know that she was waiting for that response. I'm so eager to get into the dress so that she can see what it looks like on me that I wriggle away from her and toss my shirt aside, shucking my pants and almost dancing on the spot as I grab for the shimmering fall of blue that is my armor for tonight. I can't help but moan as the soft fabric slides over my skin, as I glory in the way it hugs my curves, as I marvel at how closely her body mirrors mine. Aside from a few inches of height difference, it seems that we have the exact same measurements, and because of that little miracle the very fitted bodice settles snugly and comfortably over my frame. I turn to her with the words "Zip me?" falling from my lips, but then I see what she is wearing and all words fail me.

It's a dress I've never seen before, a creation of silk and lace and chiffon and some cotton weave that I've never seen but is almost as soft as the velvet I'm wearing. I can see every shade of green in the forest wrapped around her, the layers and the patterns of the lace making an effect of sunlight through the trees painted on her body, a fall of emerald gathered just at her feet so that creamy skin yet bare can still be seen underneath. The sleeves run all the way to her wrists, and more lace drips away in a ruffled cuff that hangs a few inches past the ends of her fingers. Her modest assets are presented enticingly in a cleverly boned corset, the neckline a sheer chiffon piece that only just obscures what is beneath and gives an air of misty mystery. I can see her still fidgeting with the ribbon that ties her in, tying it at the bottom of the corseting even as she smiles at me with mischief written through her grin. When she steps forward, the sound she makes is the wind in the trees and I know that if I just bury my head in her shoulder I could smell home again like I always do, and there is nothing and nowhere more important than this woman who is my home now. I lose myself in the moment as her fingers twitch and adjust the dress I wear until it fits just right and the zipper glides smoothly and without catching. I lose myself when I feel her nails drag up the back of my neck and through the short fuzz of my hair to tangle in the mess that is all I have left. I lose myself when I can taste her on my lips, her tongue gently flicking against my lips and teasing its way into my mouth to dance with mine, the warm caress of her mouth stealing my breath as she presses herself against me with all the love and passion that we can allow ourselves for now. When she pulls away, I think I hear her whisper, "I love you, Johanna. My strong love, my beloved Fury." I am giddy to hear her say those words, to hear her tell me that she loves me, and though I know she does I never tire of being reminded. "I love you too, Katniss. My beautiful girl, my lovely siren."

* * *

The actual wedding goes without a hitch, with Annie being calm and collected for the first time in years, her face radiant with a happiness that we could all use. I don't think that I've ever seen a wedding dress that I would want to wear, other than what was left of the one that my Girl on Fire wore at our last tribute interview, though I'm not sure that could be called a wedding dress at that point as it was charcoal with only a little white. But tonight, Annie is wearing a simple white dress that hangs to her knees and covers her from the neck to just past her elbows, and I can't help but imagine myself in it with Katniss at my side wearing a longer but still very simple white gown, both of us with veils over our faces and smiles on our lips as we kneel in front of a fire and toast bread just as she would want to. I know that after the ceremony, we would do what the people of my district did and make the first cuts on the log that a carpenter would then fashion into the crib for any children we would have. Katniss asked me once what we did in District Seven, and when I told her about that little tradition her eyes lit up with a dancing fire that made my head swim and my lungs struggle to pull in the air I needed.

Finnick on the other hand is wearing a suit that I recognize well, a slim steel ensemble with an emerald tie providing the only color in the entire outfit. He has worn it many times in ten years since he won, or has had several versions of it made, but he wears it tonight because it is almost as much his signature as the bronzed skin and blonde hair and green eyes, and also because it is the only suit he has left. My friend looks at peace for once, anchored and settled as he holds Annie's hand. No matter how hard his life has been recently, she seems to be what kept him alive and kept him going, and she seems to be fixing a little piece of him that Katniss and I feared might be gone forever. It does us well to see him happy again, to see just a little of the man that kept me strong and helped show her a new way to live even in the midst of hell. The mental and emotional scars are still obvious, but he is better and he is happy for tonight, with his new wife holding onto his arm and looking at him as if the sun and moon and stars hold no more light than a candle and he is the brightest spot in her universe. Who knows, maybe to the woman who was Annie Cresta and is now Annie Odair, he is the brightest spot.

The music starts and the gathered instruments from several districts struggle at first to come together to create a harmonious sound, but after a few strained bars everything smooths out and the newlyweds take to the floor for their first dance, the world around them fading out and their bliss making even me smile contentedly. I watch as my best friend pours out his love wordlessly to the woman who no one would have ever guessed a man like him would fall in love with. Quiet, unassuming Annie, a woman of simple beauty and soft words who was unfortunate enough to be caught in the Games and come out the other side without being whole. Somehow she wormed her way into the heart of a man who had hardened his emotions to use them as weapons and never let anyone close, made her way inside his defenses until the man who uses secrets to lay waste to the Capitol had a secret of his own. Likewise, Finnick became such an important part of her life and her world that she clings to him for balance in a world where she can never catch her feet, and now she has managed to secure herself to him so she will never be adrift again. She is serene now, and he is at peace in a crowd of people who have heard his screams and sobs and fears, the kinds of secrets he would have once guarded so jealously. I cannot express how happy it makes me to see him free of Snow, at least for now.

I hear the music change, I see other couples drift out into the open space to dance, but I don't have the desire to join them until I feel a gentle touch on my shoulder and hear smoky, raspy tones in my ear. "Are you really going to miss out on this chance to let Snow see you be happy?" I turn to look behind me and there she is, Katniss Everdeen all dressed in green, with a wicked grin on a face that is lightly touched by makeup to accentuate the cheekbones, the eyes, and the heart bow of her soft lips. "Are you really going to miss out on the chance to claim the Girl on Fire, the Mockingjay, as yours when _everyone in Panem_ is watching?" That smile sets a heat to racing through my body and what I want to do more than anything is strip her naked and take her on the floor until the sounds of her orgasms echo from the roof of the chamber, but I cannot do that with so many people around so I shelve that option for later tonight and take her hand with a smile of my own. I know that I have made the right choice when she molds herself to the front of my body and stares into my eyes from inches away, the dark green around her eyes making the gray of her irises seem almost silver and mesmerizing in its intensity. She moves when I move, and it is an echo of a different kind of dance that we know very well, the synchronicity of our thoughts matching the graceful motion of our feet. I cannot look away from her eyes, I cannot breathe but to smell her scent all around me, and I do not notice that the floor is vacant but for us and the newlyweds until she spins away from me and takes Annie in my place, leaving me with Finnick's merry-eyed approval. I see then that we four are alone, and the cameras are fixed on us as we dance in a pattern that we never rehearsed but that is still somehow natural to us.

He captures my attention when he asks a soft question, a gentleness in his eyes I haven't seen from him except when Annie is involved. "Are you going to marry her? Are you going to make you both the happiest women in Panem and ask that girl to marry you, or are you going to make her beg outright?" I am confounded as to what he means by that second question, by what he means when he asks if I'm going to make her beg outright, and then he holds up a hand and begins to count off a list that seems to be in his head. "One, she gave you her purity. Two, she fought to get you both out alive, and smiled when she saw you right there with her. Three, she has dragged you everywhere with her and forced everyone to see you as part of a package deal. Four, I have heard stories of the things she has done to one particular man every time he says something horrid about you. Five, she forced them to move you two in together when you got out of the hospital. The doctors told me that one. Six, she went all the way back to District Twelve to get you one specific dress that you liked. You look great, by the way. Seven, she as much as begged you to let her claim you on national broadcast. Are you going to make her ask you, or are you going to ask her and let her be the princess in your relationship for once? I know you're all about equality, but still... just once?" The look he gives me is the brother pushing his sister to do something she knows she needs to but is dragging her feet on, and then I understand what he's saying: I should ask her now, tonight, when everyone can see. Especially Snow. I grin and nod at him, and then he is Finnick Odair, Capitol heartthrob, again. For just a few moments, the radiant smile that stole so many hearts shines throughout the room and he gives me a fierce but short hug, then spins me back into the arms of my beloved for the final notes of the music. I can't help myself, I just have to show off now that I have made up my mind, so I bend her over backwards and kiss her with as much heat and passion as I can muster.

When I stand her up again, she is dazed and staring into space, the fingers of one hand touching her lips as she tries to steady herself, and I use that moment to slip away. I hunt down Haymitch and pull him into a hug that he returns though he is obviously confused, but this way only he can hear me when I whisper to him, "I know a use for the ring you wear on that chain around your neck." He pulls back but keeps his hands on my shoulders, an appraising look in his eye as he considers what I said and what I could mean, then his gaze flicks to where Katniss is still standing and staring into space. A few minutes and a couple glances more and he figures it out. "You gonna pop the question Johanna? You sure about this?" I take a deep breath and shake my hands, then nod and whisper with all of the fierceness I can conjure up, "Yes Haymitch, I'm sure. I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and I want Snow to _see_ it. I want to show that fucking white-haired bastard that though he has taken my family and her home away, he can never stop us from being happy. Finnick and Annie got to show him that too, I just want him to see the women he tried so hard to break stand tall." Haymitch doesn't smile, but he does pull a chain out of his shirt and unhook it, the ring that hangs there sliding until it falls into the palm of his hand. He stares at it a moment more, then hands it to me. "I never did understand why I couldn't get rid of this damned thing, but maybe this is why. Maybe I just knew I had to hold it until the right person came along. Never thought it would be you asking to give it to someone else though."

I give him another hug, this one blessedly silent, and almost skip back to the side of the woman I love. Katniss is just now managing to gather her wits, so when I skid to a stop right in front of her, she startles a bit and I can see a sweet little smile light her face. I can't take another second to think or else I might lose my nerve, so I drop to one knee in front of her and hold up my hands, the ring that Haymitch just gave me sitting in my palms. I hear my voice, though it doesn't sound like mine, say the words, "Katniss Everdeen, will you marry me?" Her hands are covering her mouth and she isn't moving, so for a moment I worry that she stopped breathing too, and then the loudest and most ear-splitting squeal erupts from her mouth and her hands are on my cheeks and her lips are mashed against mine and then gone and then there again, and before I can catch my breath from the sudden onslaught I hear her cry out, "Yes, yes! A thousand times, a thousand times yes!" She snatches the ring and slips it onto her finger and then her arms are around my neck and she is kissing me again and I can taste tears though I do not know whose, they might belong to us both. Long minutes pass and everyone is cheering and whistling and the crowd moves in to share in the joy. Finnick and Annie are the first to hug us and they stay there, refusing to move away from us so that others can join, and so our small group is surrounded by reaching hands and happy thoughts. A grin full of mischief in her eyes, my brand new fiancée turns to Cressida's cameras and purrs, "Sorry to break all those hearts out there, but only Johanna Mason can satisfy _this_ woman." This time, it's her that kisses me into stupidity, and I don't mind at all.

00000000

**A/N:** Ok, so there we go! The wedding of Annie and Finnick, something that I wanted to do SO BAD but I had to wait until I had him back and stuff. Also, this is their moment to clear up what is really going on for the rest of Panem, and to make their little family whole and stuff, and to be just adorable and mischievous and sweet and sexy and scandalous and try their very hardest to not steal the spotlight from the happy couple. I couldn't resist giving Johanna the blue dress she liked so much, and I like how the whole chapter came out. Much love to you all, I am tired and I've been writing since I got home from work, it is late, tell me what you think and please oh please enjoy!

Peace out, peeps. X

P.S. Almost forgot to mention! I know it should be obvious, but since most of my chapters are either straight Katniss or have notations for who is talking, this is a full chapter of Johanna Mason. :3 I was going to do this eventually, I just hadn't done it yet, and this was the perfect time to do it. Can you guess all the reasons why this was the best time? :P


	13. Clipped Wings

We had hoped... _I_ had hoped... that Finnick's wedding would be the start of his healing. That Annie would be the one that would allow him to start to move past the horrors of the torture he endured to protect us all. That maybe with a wife, his wonderful and shy and unintentionally demanding wife, he would be moved past his fear of water by sheer force of necessity. Maybe we were right, maybe he would have been, maybe he even was beginning to move past it, but then came the bombing, Snow's response to the happy wedding and the proposal and the dancing and the kissing and the proof that here in District Thirteen, life goes on. I feel so sad, so sorry for him, but even with the reaffirmation of his terror I do not and cannot regret getting down on one knee and asking Katniss to marry me. I do not regret being there for him on his happiest day, or dancing with him as he told me the truth I was keeping myself blind to. I do not regret anything from that day, or the night that followed, wherein I lay my beloved down and ministered to her every need, showed her how I love her, how I need her. The problem was the next day.

* * *

_We are woken by an unbelievably annoying and shrill alarm cutting through the air to hammer us to our feet. I roll to the side, unaware of my position on the bed, and fall flailing to land on the cold stone floor, bruising my tailbone in the process. "What the flying fuck monkeys is that goddamn noise?" I bellow, trying to block it out with my hands on my ears. Katniss is swearing in such a manner that it makes me proud, almost like a parent when their child does something extraordinary, but she doesn't have the answer I need right now. Thankfully, the voice of Commander Paylor comes over the PA system in the district and tells us all, "Early warning systems have detected incoming Capitol airships and long-range missiles. It is to be assumed that this is a response to last night's Airtime Assault as expected, follow the emergency lighting and retreat to the safety housing structures. This is not a drill, we have thirty minutes, priority goes to top levels first, all personnel on levels one through ten are to report to emergency stations immediately."_

_Our quarters are one level three, so we scramble to find enough clothing to be considered decent enough to leave the room. It takes about five of our precious thirty minutes, but we do manage to find a workable uniform for each of us and climb into it, sprinting down the halls haphazardly until we manage to find a group of residents who actually know where they're going. Then it's just us, two more drops in the flood of people washing down the halls and the stair and the corridors to the safety bunkers buried deep below ground. There is no way that anything can reach us here, but still we go deeper until there is nothing but a black abyss before us, and the tide thins and spreads out to dump us into a cavern so high that even with the lights they provide for us, we cannot see the ceiling. The natural pillars are thick and strong, and buttressed by human hands it seems they will never fall._

_The protocols for this are drilled into every soldier's head from the day they start training, so Katniss and I both know what to do now that we are here. We fall into the line of Thirteen citizens and wait, the slow crawl of assignment inching us forward even as the last of the evacuated finally make it down into the safety of the cave._

* * *

_The hours crawl by, the time spent in the dark interminable even with water clocks to keep it. Down here in the black, there is nothing to keep out the memories, nothing to keep the nightmares at bay except the company of the ones who would understand. Katniss and I leave our space to hunt down the newlyweds, seeking the comfort of their presence and also seeking to offer the comfort of ours. Somehow we both know that Finnick isn't going to be taking this well, that being thrust underground by bombs isn't going to help him overcome his fear._

* * *

_Days come and go, and at last, freedom comes. We ascend to the surface, happy to be freed of our bonds and our imprisonment in the stone to find that the sky is weeping our release just as we are. Katniss and I step into the rain and glory in it, the feeling of the cold damp running down our skin showing us, telling us, that we are alive and free, that Snow still has no hold on the life we have built in his absence. We laugh and dance in the downpour, love flowing freely between us, and smile to see Annie step out of the shelter of Thirteen to join us. She beckons to Finnick, and for a moment we think it will work, that having the three of us there for him will be enough, but then he leaves his protection behind. I count the seconds and he is under the sky for only about fifteen of them before he falls to the ground screaming and clawing at his flesh, his hysterical babbling exclaiming that it burns, that the water itself is electrocuting him. I hear him weep even as he rants and writhes, and there is nothing that we can do but pick him up and carry him back indoors. Even out of the rain, he continues to try and fight, to claw, to get away from the torment that is the worst scar the Capitol has ever given one of us. Katniss looks at him with pity in her eyes, and before I can do anything to stop her she drops his feet and punches him in the jaw. I scream at her all the way to the hospital, but she is unrepentant and believes she did what was best for him. I can't tell her that I actually think she is right, that knocking him out saved him a lot of pain and us a lot of trouble._

* * *

Our fight is far from over, or so they tell us. The truth of the matter is much less defined however. Our fight is almost done, but the last holdout in the war with the Capitol is District Two, and it isn't falling. No matter how much they rebels in Two work, no matter what they try to do or how they attack the Peacekeeper nest, they can't take it and they can't destroy it. About a week ago, after days trapped underground and the freedom after resulting in the near total collapse of the sanity of my best friend, I forced Coin and Plutarch to send me to District Two, to put me on the front lines. Of course they had to send Katniss too, their Girl on Fire being so gifted and all when it comes to getting people to follow her. She says she doesn't have a way with words, and that may be true, but she certainly has a way with people. Peeta knew it, and while his words could make anything we little people did seem inconsequential, it was the actions that my lover took in conjunction with those words that could give them so much power. Her charisma, the thing that makes her a perfect rallying point for the rebels, is what caused the rebellion in the first place. It's why Peeta stuck with her, even gave his life for her in the arena. It's why Finnick fought to save Peeta, it's why he refused to bend for the Capitol, it's why he fought to stay silent until they broke him and even then he didn't talk. It's why Haymitch crawled out of his bottle, why he sobered up and became the mentor I had heard he used to be. It's why that man worked behind the curtain, his machinations keeping her alive and allowing so many things to come to pass.

More importantly, her charisma is what brought me to her in the first place. Make no mistake, Katniss Everdeen is a beautiful woman, far more incredible than a broken monster such as myself should ever be lucky enough to have, but it was her actions that caught my attention. It was the way that she effortlessly managed to call others to her, like Peeta before she even knew that he existed, and Rue in the arena. Her defiance in the face of death gave us all hope, and when she gave Rue the best she could for a funeral, though much of it was censored away we knew. When she pulled out the nightlock berries, some of us who were ready to fight saw the truth of the action, that it wasn't love that drove her but a desire to hurt the Capitol. If they would go back on their word and betray her, they would pay for it by losing the one thing they held most dear: their victor. When she entered the Capitol for the second time, a goddess of war burning with her rage and staring unforgivingly at those who perpetrated her return, so many people fell in love with her. The year previous, it was Peeta that they knew, with her being the pretty and eye-catching girl with a new name. The second year, she was the one who escaped, she was the one that fought until the fight was done and then kept going, and she was the one that the Capitol betrayed again. Oh, they betrayed all of us victors, but she was the one that everyone could see the anger on. I saw her in that chariot, and there were no words anymore. There was only her.

Now she is here with me, in an active war zone, and they are trying to keep us out of the fighting but they can't. We are both trained soldiers, and Katniss knows how to be sneaky, how to move unseen, and I just follow her whenever that happens. No matter where we are that day, or what propo we are shooting about the state of the war here, if she hears gunshots she vanishes and I have to scramble to catch up. We have actually appeared in many of the more crucial battles, just suddenly on the line and her voice rallying the troops. When they see our armor, the rebels cheer and renew their fight, and the Peacekeepers start to crumble. They have tried to fight against us, but her legend precedes her, and so does mine. They can't aim straight, they can't stop shaking, they can't stand strong, not in the face of the Mockingjays. Her arrows sing through the open air, leaving devastation in their wake, and when the fighting gets close, it is my axes that they fear. Thirteen thought to keep us out of the fight, and yet they forgot that they were allowing us to go to a real war zone with our weapons and our grudge against the Capitol. Because of that, though I suppose I should actually say "because of our determination to not sit idle while others fight and die in our name," we have helped to push back the Peacekeepers and the resistance in this District until one last problem is all that remains.

In the center of the district, among all the villages in the mountains and the cave systems and the battlefields, there is a mountain. I think it used to be called Pike's Peak or something, but now it is the last line of defense that the Capitol has against the rebels. When the uprising occurred way back when, Thirteen was the seat of the military for Panem. Their defection, secession, whatever you want to call it, crippled the Capitol and they had to scramble to make sure they had a new place of strength, hence District Two becoming the training grounds of the Peacekeepers, and at the very center, a mountain that had once been a mine for precious metals and coal and other things. When their needs changed, so did the jobs of those working in the mountain. No longer was there a need for gold, or silver, and coal was mined in Twelve, so instead the miners were turned into stonecutters, hollowing out the mountain so that teams of scientists and engineers could move in and rig the whole place up as an impenetrable fortress. They had banks of computers, drill halls, training grounds like the ones we had in the Capitol as Tributes, hangars for their hovers, surface-to-air missile pods, AA guns, everything they could possibly need to defend themselves and train more recruits. The rebels of Two have been fighting to take this fortress since the whole thing began, but no matter how many ways or how many times they go for it, they always fail. They've taken to calling it 'the Nut' because it is so tough to crack, and personally I love the name.

Today, we sit in the center of the main town, our command center within sight of the train station and the Hall of Justice. We're in a meeting with the commander of the rebel forces here, a woman named Lyme who I recognize as a Victor though it seems to be taking Katniss longer, when we both get a com on our earpieces. I know it isn't just me when her head jerks up and she stares at me, a startled expression smeared across her fine features. Haymitch's voice pours into my ear, his speech slightly slurred but on the whole about as sober as we've come to expect. I hear him tell me that the brains of the rebellion are on their way to help us with the puzzle of breaking the Nut, and when he hesitates, I predict what he's about to say with more accuracy than I believed I could have. "Johanna, there's one thing... Gale is coming with the rest. He may not be a genius per se, but he does bring another perspective and he is smart. Just thought you oughta know, in case. Katniss... I'm sorry. He insisted." I watch as my fiancee's face settles into a stony expression of disinterest, and I worry that Gale has made her close up again just like he always does.

* * *

The meeting has been going on for hours, and there is still no sign that it will ever end. Hawthorne has more patience than Kat or I, but even he couldn't stay sitting at the table after the first two hours. Now he spends his time pacing between the planning display and the window where my girl has seated herself, staring at the mountain we are trying to conquer. When he speaks, his voice is quiet and controlled. "Is it necessary to take the Nut, or would it be enough to simply disable it?" Beetee looks up from his blueprints and stares long and hard at the hunter before answering, "That would be a step in the right direction. What did you have in mind?" Katniss and I ignore the rest of it, not caring about anything unless it means we get to do more fighting against Capitol forces. We don't think that we'll get the chance, but then Volts calls in to Thirteen control and tells them the plan they've come up with, and even President Coin tells them to funnel everyone out the main entrance of the mountain and wait for them, capture them if we can and kill them if we must. We grin at the prospect of being given orders we can follow.

* * *

Our planes are ignored at first, having never caused trouble for the Nut before, but their waves of bombing eventually gets their attention as they realize what we're trying to do. Their AA guns spin up, but by then it's already too late and the mountainside begins to slide, great waves of rock and dirt cascading down the slopes and wiping all traces of human presence from view or existence. I can only imagine the terror and panic inside the fortress, and then I realize something I should have known beforehand. Katniss has gone silent next to me, her gaze fixed on the mountain as she watches everything descend into chaos, and I know where her thoughts have gone because I am following her narrative in my head. What we have done is collapse a mine onto the miners within, echoing the tragedy that stole her father from her six years ago. We hear Haymitch tell us to get inside, but I know what she's going to say before she says it and what she'll do before she does it, so I bark back that we're going to go take care of the Peacekeeper resistance and help the rebels hold the train station.

We sprint down the steps leading into the square, sliding on handrails to get past our own soldiers where necessary, and we don't look back. I hear the song of her bow behind me, see the streaks of her arrows as they fly by me and pin soldiers to walls or to the one behind them, and I can feel the air ripple as bullets whiz past my face. My axes carve a path of carnage through each unit that seeks to press into the square, to press desperately towards their comrades, to rescue those coming from the fortress. No Peacekeeper makes it past me, not with my Girl on Fire backing me up. Other squads of rebels hold the streets I cannot defend, and soon we can hear the trains screeching into the station. Finally, the soldiers stop trying to beat us back, their number too few to even make a push on one point. We think it is over, but then nothing happens. The trains are empty, no one on them and nothing happening, at least not until...

_BOOM._ The first explosion rips through the lead car of the train in the station, shards of glass and twisted metal blasting out into the populace surrounding the building. Most of the casualties are civilians, unarmed and unarmored men, women, and children hoping to see their families come tumbling out of the doors, though a few of the dead are rebel soldiers. Not enough though, and the effect is opposite whatever was intended, I am sure. We were supposed to be decimated and demoralized by the blast, but instead it is once again the innocent who are caught in the Capitol's heavy-handed stroke, and I can take no more of it. A red haze settles over my eyes, everything focuses down to a single point, and my feet are pounding on the earth beneath them as I charge what is left of our enemies. Anyone wearing the armor the Peacekeepers falls with gaping red mouths carved into them, bullets chip the stone at my feet or by my face, I move as I have never moved before, and there is nothing that can stop me now until pain explodes in my chest, all of my forward momentum stopped with a single shot, the bits of metal raining down around me. I cannot breathe, I cannot think for the pain, but I can feel my heart continue to pump so I know I will live. I cannot say the same for the woman carrying the shotgun that blasted me, her head vanishing in a crimson spray as the explosive charge in the arrowhead detonates.

Boggs rushes to me, checking me over and mumbling something about us Mockingjays being lucky to have armor so well made and impervious. I can hear Katniss begin to rant into a microphone, telling whoever is left that the fighting is over and the Nut has fallen, when two more trains screech to a halt in the station, people pouring out choking on smoke as they shoot the lights in an ill-advised attempt to give themselves cover. As they stumble out of the cover of the building, I can see Katniss start to do what she does best and take care of people. Upside-down, I can see one guy trying to plug a hole in his face with a bloody cloth as he points his gun at her head with the other. I can't hear what they are saying at first, but then she turns away and continues to speak louder now, "When I saw that mountain fall tonight, I thought...they've done it again. Got me to kill you - the people in the districts. But why did I do it? District Twelve and District Two have no quarrel except the one the Capitol gave us." She stands straighter and her voice strengthens, and I can feel myself fall for her all over again as she continues to speak. "And why are you fighting with the rebels on the rooftops? With Lyme, who was your victor? With people who were your neighbors, maybe even your family? And you up there? I come from a mining town. Since when do miners condemn other miners to that kind of death, and then stand by to shoot whoever manages to crawl from the rubble?" I hear Haymitch in our ears ask her who the enemy is and she continues on, "These people are not your enemy! The rebels are not the enemy! We all have one enemy, and it's the Capitol! This is our chance to put an end to their power, but we need every district person to do it! Please! Join us!"

I think that they will join us, that they must join us after a speech like that, but instead I see her shot only thirty feet from me, the bullet slamming into her back from inches away and knocking her forward to land on the pavement, blessedly unconscious as I try to scream her name and only succeed in causing my vision to black out from lack of air.

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**A/N:** I know it's not as long as you have all come to expect, but I've had to work on this chapter for days and I finally am satisfied with it. I wasn't sure what I was going to do about this, actually, so I had to see what I came up with. The things that happened were not originally intended, but I feel that this is more or less what would make the story proceed best. I don't know, killing innocents like that always turns my stomach, but it does show that the Capitol is the real enemy.

Johanna getting shot first was something that I didn't even think of doing until I blew up that train. I know her mind well enough to know that seeing people who never fought get cut down would throw her into a frenzy, and in that berserker state she would be faster but not as cautious. Her getting shot by a shotgun was the only way I could guarantee less damage to her than Katniss would suffer, so for where I'm taking this, it was necessary. Still though, getting both girls shot... I don't like it. :( I love my girls.


End file.
